Infected Barrel Aged Yeti

Bottle 2607 was thoroughly infected.

 

Deschutes took action, now pasteurizes. No more infections. Shorts, not so much. What they have in common is reviews of infected beer brought both situations to attention most successfully.

The only hope to have breweries do the right thing is to hit them where it hurts. Some may not believe it, but breweries pay attention to reviews. Reviewing infected beer as it is may be the best tool we consumers have to motivate breweries to do both of the right things. Recall/refund infected beer. Improve their sanitation techniques/move to pasteurization for future batches.

Attn. Prospero: Bros. have stated to review infected beers as they are. To me this means there will be no special section of BA for infected beer listings. There already is a spreadsheet for it, though I don't have URL handy.

 

Thanks, I actually was looking over a different thread and found this guy's solution to be a good compromise, something that would be easy to implement, allow sorting by batch (which I think would help identify the good vs. bad years), and could feasibly show you the rating for each batch separately or combined as one beer.... without adding pages or new beers...

http://beeradvocate.com/community/t...nt-years-for-the-same-beer.21122/#post-254035

I'd be down for doing this as it would clearly separate which years/batches were bad for certain beers.

 

Short's hasn't had any issues in over a year. They pasturize now and are good to go.

 

Well that's two examples, and while it did work for them, I don't think it's fair to say that it would work for most beers/breweries. I don't think most breweries are that proactive in checking their beer ratings to make sure it's quality. You know what actually works best? Emailing, calling, tweeting or posting on their Facebook page. It gets their attention real quick

I mean there's a lot of talk about rate the beer in hand, and while I agree with that to some degree, what's next, nothing? If it's infected, that is brewery preventable and I'm not saying you should be idle about it, I'd much rather contact the brewery directly about it to get a refund and/or exchange, and to bring promptattention to the situation.

 

This seems pretty rationale, but that still doesn't help me when I'm about to pull the trigger on a 30$+ beer at the local shop. Unless a total recall takes place.....

 

Yea, I'm not saying that's the only recourse, I'm just saying that should be the first response, and probably best response to get the brewery's attention. I think we're all on the same page that there needs to be some way to notify others of possible infection, it's just a discussion of how.

 

Really? Brewers should be judged on what they intend to make and not what they actually do?

 

You should read the rest of the thread.

 

Just a recap on bottle #s reported infected:

264
269
460
770
1216
1387
1727
1785
1896
2101
2102
2159
2195
2607
3229
3596

Plus a dozen or so more who didn't give a number. If there's a pattern there, I don't see it..

 

The pattern must be that they're all infected.

Seriously, I would love to see which grouping of bottles they tested.

 

Thanks for doing that.
I bet if we ran these numbers through that IBM Watson computer it could find a pattern. Like the real-time coordinates of an actual infected Yeti, perhaps a sasquatch in the Oregon hills with a nasty yeast infection...

 

A friend and I are having one now and it is soo good.

 

There should be a dislike button

 

I hate when people don't review infected beers. We already know there will be a great percentage of homers (or others with easy access/cases of bottles) not reviewing an infection because it will devalue their beer, but there is no reason for others not to review it. The brewer is responsible for what they release. I want to know BEFORE I buy or trade for an infected beer.

 

I personally see no reason in reviewing an infected beer. At the very least just put the word INFECTED in your review and put low numbers, but nothing else is needed. It cracks me up when people do aroma, mouthfeel, etc in a review of an infected beer. It's obviously not at all what the brewer wanted. Then again, I don't review beer so I guess I have no frame of reference.

 

That's why it needs to be a notification, not a review. It's not really beer you're rating, it's an infection at that point. I do not care to hear about how chewy the infection is or how it pours like motor oil or smell's like baby diapers.

 

Bottom line: What is a brewery's response to an infection?

In this case, GD knows about it and has apparently offered/compensated those who contacted them directly w/ a bottle of BA Ruffian.

Is this an acceptable response? Some would say the brewery should publicly acknowledge a possible infection, and do some kind of a recall. (Which I agree would be the most responsive thing to do.) If they do as Deschutes did, GD runs the risk of people asking for a free BA Ruffian even of their BA Yeti wasn't infected. This must be an extremely costly endeavor, so I guess that's why GD has stopped well short of this option. Those who have been compensated thus far are probably fine with buying GD products in the future. For those who got an infected bottle and haven't contacted GD, the ball's in your court. For the rest of us, we may or may not take GD's response into account when buying beer next time...

 

Remember there are people (who are probably holding bottles) who will say a beer is infected but doesn't ruin the beer. I guess I don't mind if they want to post a full review.

 

Anyone know if they're shipping the BA Ruffian's or is it just a local pick up deal?