White Chocolate possibly infected; Patrick Rue responds

I may open my 3rd bottle of 2013 this weekend but I'm not expecting anything more than another drain pour.

 

First off, I'm an all-in Bruery fanboy, but i can't say i'm not pretty disappointed with all of this. i mean, no worries, misses happen, i think they knock out 95% of what they brew and that's why i spend a ridiculous portion of my beer budget on their stuff alone, which i don't regret and likely won't change...

But dang, when a large portion of their business is pre-sales (ie, i pay for it long before i try it) to club members, on super premium, expensive beers,etc., you have to nail consistency (or at least consistent quality). i'm not a brewer, so i have no idea the difficulty in this (i imagine it's gargantuan), and from what the reviews are it doesn't sound like an infection or anything, but WC was one of our favorites from last year, and at $30/pop it seems like a real expensive way to acquire a weird beer that's nothing like the version of it last year. $120 buys a lot of breakfast stout, ya know?

I mean, i guess we're both in a tough spot. The Bruery didn't spoil/screw up the beer maybe, but it didn't exactly give us what we thought we were getting. We all (ignorantly?) thought it would taste just like last year's, or at least close, and bought $30 beers before we tried them.

Part of me says they shouldn't give a refund for a beer that isn't infected but just tasted different, that's part of the deal with craft beers, barrel aging, etc. And i would completely understand that response, WC is expensive to make and i'm sure it's a huge hit to them to recall/refund or whatever. And they probably don't want to get into the habit of refunding every beer people aren't crazy about, either...

Another part of me, though, (the part connected to my wallet) thinks that in order for their business model to work, for hundreds (thousands?) of beer geeks to consistently shell out hundreds (thousands?) of dollars for premium,expensive beers they haven't yet tried, there needs to be a pretty large level of confidence in the end quality. Especially when they are consistently (and vocally) dedicated to upholding their brand rep. i know i usually just click the box and swipe the card for their BA stuff, but just in the last couple months have been more cautious about what i'm buying (i wonder if the Bruery has seen a trend in sales?), at least until a few reviews are out. i mean, i would have loved the coconut blend thing, but at $30 a pop, i'm going to wait and hope to land some later...

I don't know, and honestly Patrick/Bruery, i'm going to buy a lot of your beers regardless of how you handle this, you guys are a business that deserves to be supported, and some of your beers are my absolute favorite in the world. But for a beer geek (even with a decent budget), that $30 for a bottle of something i'm not excited about opening takes the fun out of it just a little bit, and that's what it's all about after all.

either way, can't wait for October, when i can buy a lot of Bruery beers
cheers guys

 

Well, everyone including myself thought this was a bottle of White Chocolate covered green apple. Really odd flavor, disappointed that it tasted that way considering that last years was amazing. Not to mention that I now have 11 bottles of it left.

 

Well said Ridglens. That's probably the biggest thing for me, is that I've been consistently increasing my Bruery purchases based on the fact that most of their beers are homeruns and all have I tried have been at least good. I joined the Preservation society and have been looking forward to possibly joining a higher tier membership when the opportunity arises. I hate that I am now having reservations. Based on my enjoyment of all the Bruery beers I've tried and last year's White Chocolate receiving such rave reviews, I immediately purchased two bottles for $60+shipping when it became available online and I was really excited to get to try it. I know beers like this might not be 100% consistent from year to year, but to try a bottle and not be able to sip more than a few ounce before pouring it out is a major disappointment. I can only image the level of disappointment from folks who purchased even more than I did, like JesseLara, who had their first bottle be bad and then have 11 more unopened.

I'm not sure the best idea regarding refunding. I do consider this to be more than a slight variation, as it doesn't at all resemble the previous year's beer or the flavors they advertise. Something obviously went wrong.

My first shipment in the Preservation Society had Ebony and Oak, and they send me a $15 GC which I thought was a nice way to handle the situation...though in actuality, it just covered the shipping on the order I placed with it, but I felt like The Bruery at least made an effort and I appreciated that.

Now I'm feeling gun shy about ordering their expensive beers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up on them by any means, because their beers are fantastic. But I'm thinking, I'll stick to no more than one bottle of anything until I'm confident it's okay. Which will probably mean missing out on some of their limited beers.

Still waiting to see how things play out too.

Meanwhile, I've been drinking some of their other beers the past few days and really enjoying them. Hottenroth last night. Bryeian the night before. I really enjoyed both :-)

 

Alpine Beer Co.

There I said it for you.

 

ugh. sure glad my trustee picked up $150 of white chocolate when the NYC BAs i have chatted with about this year's have unanimously stated that they've poured all of them.

 

Thanks for the info. I was withholding judgment until the NYC BAs rendered an opinion.

That is one cute dog in your avatar. Breed?

 

This, basically. I know I've scaled back my purchases for the last two rounds of offerings, and while I re-upped my membership for next year, I will be ordering far less beer. One confirmed bad beer and one potentially bad beer is frankly too many given all the reasons outlined above.

Love their beers, but can't risk the large cash outlays unless I'm 100% confident the beer I'm getting is of top quality (top quality != to me liking it, of course).

 

I'm in touch with this emotion. Kinda like how I hold off on trying to determine trade value until midwest BAs weigh in on threads in the ISO:FT forum.

 

why would the confirmed bad beer make you less likely to order beer next year? it was refunded and you got to keep the beer!

 

In general I agree with that. In the coffee business if a roaster refunded everyone's money because the 2013 Esmeralda Gesha didn't taste as good as the 2012 they'd go broke.

But refund or not, color me very disappointed in the two bottles of 2013 WC I've had.

 

I am a n00b here but registered to give my three cents on this topic (like it matters but what the heck). I don't consider myself a beer expert, but I am a big time Bruery fanbot.

Had White Choc '12 at a tasting somewhere local -- loved it.

Had White Choc (assume '13) on tap at the Bruery a few weeks ago. Loved it.

Cracked a bottle of '13 when I got home before ever even knowing about this forum and thread. My husband and I both noticed the weird tartness to it. I wouldn't call it quite sour, but it didn't taste like what we'd had before; there was still "white chocolate" flavor there, but there was definitely an odd and distinct tartness. Not as sweet as I expected it to be. And it did have a funky smell as well.

You guys keep talking about "drain pours" but I am not willing or able in good conscience to dump strong, expensive beer. So I drank the rest of the bottle (what a trooper!) but assumed this was what they'd all be like. Disappointed, but what can you do.

Cracked yet another bottle of '13 about a week ago. To my complete surprise, this bottle was sweet white chocolate deliciousness -- exactly what I had tasted before. I was delighted (and relieved!) that it was fine. After giving my husband a wee sip to verify that this indeed tasted totally different from the first one too, I drank the rest of that bottle right the hell up.

One thing I did note with the second bottle that probably has nothing to do with anything, it seemed there was a fair amount more wax on it than had been on the first one. I actually cracked through at least two distinct wax "layers" while cutting it off the top to get the bottle open. I did not have that much trouble getting through the wax on the first bottle (and yes, both were '13 per the label).

How can you tell what the actual bottle date is? I looked all over the bottle but didn't see anything obvious, unless it's under the wax somewhere. Or else I am blind.

I plan on rolling the dice and opening another this weekend. But based on my highly unscientific and very unsophisticated experience, it seems like maybe there were batches that somehow got jacked, and the whole run is not "ruined" (and personally I would hardly call the bottle I had that was extra-weirdly-tart as "ruined"; it just wasn't what I had before/expected).

Call me ever the optimist anyway.

 

Now you're just putting words in my mouth
There are other major offenders as well

 

Yah there are. But when a brewery releases 3 infected beers in a row (BA Token, BA Odin's Raven b1, Chez Monieux) and then blame it on people not keeping their beer at 40*F I tend to think they are either 1) completely untrained and can't brew beer as well as they think they can, or 2) complete liars.

That's why I jumped on their case.

 

It's both.

 

I actually didn't even purchase any ebony and Oak, so I dodged the bullet altogether! But really whether or not I bought the problematic beers makes no difference. given the cost and hassle of being a society member on the easy coast, I don't want to deal with receiving bad beer,getting refunds, etc wheni could spend my money elsewhere. a big draw of the society for me is that its a dependable way for me to get interesting beers from a brewery I like. If that 'dependable' part starts slipping then I will change my expenditures.

 

I feel like we're all milling around in a convention hall waiting for the keynote speaker to make an address.

PMR ... where are you. Your people are waiting.

 

They will, as per usual, not reply until they are 100% ready to take all of our concerns, destroy them perfectly with logic, precision, and undying love, make us feel just a little childish for having them (rightly so), and then slam their message home with a promise of grey Monday

 

Can I once again express surprise and amazement with the number of people in this thread that actually loved WC, even the version from last year? I'm just watching to see what The Bruery's response is - I'd hate if an infection or problem with the process screwed up Black Tuesday.

 

gawd WC from last year <3