Peruvian Morning infected again?...

I had my first (and last) PM last night. Metallic, bitter, infected. It's a shame too because I could detect flavors that what would have been an exceptional beer. CW may be a fine brewery but this is inexcusable especially considering that this is a least the second, maybe third bad batch in as many years. I can only imagine the howling from some on this thread if this were a Stone or FFF offering.

 

It's a bummer, but pretty widely known that the PMs are bad right now. Just wait until the brew a good batch and the word gets out, then come back for deliciousness.

 

PM is one of my favorite coffee beers when its not infected. Unfortunately, I won't be giving them another chance. Look into Big Bad Baptist, Coffee Framinghammer, BCBSC (obviously), and even Central Waters Brewhouse Coffee Stout. Brewhouse Coffee stout isn't barrel-aged, but it's absolutely delicious and only $6 for a bomber.

 

I lucked up last night apparently.

I got a box yesterday from a new trader from the greater Chicago area. Buncha NG and CW stuff. He threw one of these in as an extra and I had it as a night cap. I was blown away with how smooth and creamy it was. Had no trace of infection or off flavor.

Sadly, I passed out about 2/3 of the way through. At least least I didn't spill any or drop my precious Teku

 

I picked up some PM on the first day CW was distributing in Iowa. Had one that night and thought it was great and that I dodged the infection bullet. I had one again the other night and damn was I wrong. Pretty unfortunate as it would have been a great value if it wasn't infected.

 

The beer was recalled again this year. Probably why it wasnt very good

http://beerpulse.com/2014/03/centra...ing-bourbon-barrel-aged-stout-recalled-again/

 

My first two 4 packs have been phenomonal!

 

Too lazy to search for it, but i'm pretty sure CW said they would no longer brew PM.

 

The last blog post I read from cw said the future of pm is "uncertain", unless I missed a newer one.

 

And the sentence right after that says, "We have a lot of analysis to do to determine if we'll be able to continue to make the beer without changing it drastically..."

I read that as they weren't going to make it anymore, but i guess that's up to interpretation. It would be a shame if they couldn't remedy the situation somehow.

 

I think it's pretty hard to believe that they can't remedy the problem somehow, I mean there are plenty of breweries that make coffee beers and barrel aged coffee stouts that have the process under control. Bcbcs is a good example of a large bbl barrel aged coffee stout that is consistently brewed year after year. I hope central waters can get their pm infection issues under control, it's a great brew.

 

BCBCS is a 13-14% ABV beer so they don't have issues with infection.. at least according to John Laffler anyways. Peruvian Morning isn't as fortunate as it's a lower ABV stout.

 

I would think the same thing, but 3 consecutive years of infection?

 

While I'm sure that the abv of bcbcs contributes to it's resistance of infection I doubt that it makes a dramatic impact on whether or not infection does in fact take hold.

My thinking was that if goose island can produce so much bcbcs with little or no issues they must have their sanitation process really dialed in to produce the best beer possible with no waste due to infected barrels. That being said, I think that it would be possible for central waters to do the same with pm, so that no more repeats of the last three years happen.

The abv issue may or may not effect the ability to resist infection, that I'm not sure about at all so I'm not trying to be argumentative just a thought.

 

Of course, I'm not saying that GI just haphazardly slings together beer in barrels and gets bailed out because their stouts are high ABV. I'm sure GI has effective quality control, and it also helps that they have probably the biggest barrelhouse you'll find outside of Kentucky so that they can produce plenty of bbls worth of Bourbon County and variants even if they were to lose some barrels to contamination.

I tried Googling the source of my conception that John Laffler was saying that the base BCBS being above 10% basically prevents contamination from taking hold, and sure enough I find it in another BA's post here. So take it for what that may or may not be worth.

 

Do you have any idea how much more money GI has compared to CW? They will eventually get it figured out, but I expect it to be a completely different process and beer.

 

Still have 4 packs of it at some stores in northern WI, tastes amazing.

 

Well sir I stand corrected.

I guess in the case of pm the under 10% abv is a detriment to their process, maybe they should up the octane a little too reduce the risk of infection when they add coffee. Although then it will be a different brew, but based on their other offerings that are bba I'm sure they can make it work.

 

If they bump up the alcohol with a slightly bigger grain bill the beer would change, but if it reduces the chance of infection I'd say it's worth it if they can do it and still make a tasty beer.

 

Not everything on the internet is 100% truth.