Port Jeff Bourbon Barrel Porter - Infection Issues?

Sucks to hear man. I have only had it on tap and it was delicious

 

had one a month ago and was surprised on how great it was

 

Don't judge it by that. Mike from Port Jeff called all the accounts and asked us to pull them off the shelves. I had the beer on cask and it was awesome. Give it a shot next time it's around.

 

Timing is everything.

 

I was so drunk off of Dissident straight from the bottle with a straw I didnt even notice how bad the PJ was.
Thanks for the heads up, Ill be opeing mine ASAP.

 

April 15th.

 

I was extremely disappointed with this in the bottle when i first got it, nothing special and the porter didnt have much flavor and barrel treatment was not very good (it was aged in Jack barrels right? havent a Jack aged beer I like). Have heard good things about it on draft though, so had high hopes

 

agreed, for the price point and the locale i wanted this to be really good. it was mediocre. i don't know how long they aged it but the barrel flavor was barely there.

 

I figured this was worth posting again. Mike asked us all to pull it on April 15th. He realized there were problems, and wanted it all taken off the shelves.

 

With all do respect to Port Jeff Brewing, they need to get their act together in the sanitation department. Their fresh hop pale ale developed an infection (that the brewery decided to market as a sour, which is awful); bottles of Starboard Oatmeal Stout are infected; Batch #2 of Barrel Aged Porter (Heaven Hill Barrels) has developed an infection; their anniversary porter (aged on year in Heaven Hill Barrels) developed an infection; and Batch 3 of Barrel Aged Porter (Jack Daniels Barrels) is infected.

 

the blue waxed top or cage/cork?

 

mine was blue waxed... no infection issue, but didnt taste very good

 

thanks, i have that one and a cage/cork heaven hills one, want to get the possible infected one in the fridge

 

Both batches contain infected bottles.

 

Rather than relying on speculation, why not hear facts from the source:

As the brewery owner I can tell you exactly what happened. Our latest batch of BA Porter was aged in Jack Daniels whiskey barrels for a period of three months. We changed up the packaging from a Belgian style 750mL bottle to a champagne 750ML. In addition to the bottle change we wax dipped the crowns in blue wax and I would agree that with this batch it likely tasted better than the product within. We realized shortly after the bottles had made their way into the market place that there was an issue with the capping. Our crowner did not agree with the new bottle style and thus created leaky caps. Once we pulled the bottles from shelves we ran a battery of tests on them and also found that they contain pediococcus which will cause both a diacetyl flavor or sourness depending on circumstances. In this case it produced sour notes. Pediococcus also has the ability to continue to eat sugars that the original fermenting yeast would not thus producing overcarbing (gushers). We traced the pediococcus back to the JD barrels and have ceased their use. In my personal opinion, the Heaven Hill barrels give much better flavor characteristics then the JD barrels. In the future we solely use the HH for the porter.

With regards to xenjoii's posts, we have not had reports of any prior batches of the BA Porter having issues. xenjoii if you have had them PM me so I can determine why. There may be a handling issue. We did have one batch of Starboard Oatmeal Stout bottles that we recalled for issues that we didn't have the ability at that time to test. That was in December of 2012. We do indeed have a sour ale that was turned due to wild yeast from the fresh hops. We have not decided yet to mass release it but test casks and bottles have received good reviews.

If you have purchased a bottle that you believe to be infected please contact me directly thru the brewery email info at portjeffbrewing dot com. We very much want to compensate you for the inconvenience and also like to receive the liquid back when at all possible to test in our lab.

Generally speaking for any beer or brewery: If you find flaws or inconsistencies in a beer it is best to contact the brewery directly and let them know. Especially when you notice that other folks have rated the beer well. Trashing them anonymously on various websites doesn't help fix that there may be bad beer out in the market. Many times the brewery may not even realize bad beer is on the streets. Typically when you do contact them directly you get a nice reward out of the deal and everybody wins.

I realize the flood gate is now open to trash me from behind anonymous cloaks but so be it. Everybody knows where to find me. I'm comfortable with that. thanks for reading

Mike Philbrick
owner/brewer PJBC

 

shit happens, hopefully no one trashes you. Ill crack my bottle open, if its not infected Ill be the first to say so, if it is I will gladly return it for you to test (and trade you for a bottle of the wild).