O'so 7th Anniversary Party

As previously posted, contact O'so and get your money back if you are unhappy.

 

I understand that. The 4 hour drive isn't worth the $100. Lose Lose.

 

You could arrange to do it the next time you're in the area, such as Central Waters Seventeen if you're going, or another of the scheduled O'so releases. Just saying you have options. I'm totally unhappy about it, too, for the record.

 

I agree, which is what I'll have to do. It's just a failure and pretty frustrating, this was supposed to be a big deal and it's a disaster if I have to sit on these for 3 months and return them.

 

It's definitely a huge failure. Like I said above, I'm done buying O'so (besides Funk Factory, which is really only barely related) until they figure this shit out. Their regular lineup is extremely average (or worse), and the special releases always have very high potential that they never live up to, usually due to lack of QC.

 

For what it's worth I had the Blackberry last weekend and really enjoyed... so it's not all bottles. No carb, but real jammy and delicious - and that's saying a lot since I tend to not like fruited stouts/porters.

 

The problem is that it should be carbed, and the fact that it is not even after waiting the requisite time is an undeniable issue. It may still be a tasty beer to you, but that doesn't discount the obvious problem with the beer not being as advertised or intended. Also, due to the inherent tartness of blackberries, any potential infection is going to be harder to detect than in Poblano or regular BA.

 

Meh. It's an imperial porter. Carb isn't as important as other styles.

Pretty sure it's been made clear in many channels that it's not carbed.

Fair enough.

rabble rabble. sure, lack of carb is far from ideal. there really aren't that many reports of infection on untappd or BA to write it off as a "huge failure".

not sure if you've ever had an infected beer. tastes very little like tart blackberries.

Why give Funk Factory a pass? None of their first releases were carbed... and all were infected (har har)

 

It was, but it was more like a wine. I didn't even want to finish the other half of the bottle...

 

I love me some Night Train, but aside from that I've never had an O'so beer that was better than average. I was kind of taken aback by all the (in me eye, unearned) hype leading up to this release.

If you're making only average beer, you're not going to all of a sudden be making amazing beer just by putting it in a barrel or souring it.

 

I've had infected BA Night Train, infected Peruvian Morning, some other infected thing that I can't even remember, and infected Abyss. Infection can take many forms on the palate, and someone who doesn't know could easily confuse infection with blackberries. Dweller, Scarlet Letter, and Door Kriek all had some, albeit low, carbonation. Those Night Trains have been completely still. There is a drastic difference. Also, if any style, wilds/lambics can be expected to have less carbonation, not so much imperial porters.

As far as I'm concerned it's a huge failure to have the amount of complaints that there have been. QC is a big issue to me, and O'so has a history of being poor at it. Also them doing damage control by owning up to the carb issues does not mean they're "advertising" it as flat. The beer is a BA imperial porter, again, it's supposed to have at least some carbonation, and people buying it didn't expect it to be flat because that's not to style.

By far the worst thing, however, is their distribution of a beer they know to be not ready. I understand releasing them not quite ready at the party because lots of people would be up there making it easy to get it into the hands of those that would care. Dan Carey did this with VSB. There is no excuse for them not holding onto them until they were ready for distribution though, as there was no impetus to get them out there in any time window.

 

Do mean to suggest this was intentional or by design?

 

That's the part that gets me too. Having warning signs up at the brewery during the release party earns them a pass, but sending them into distro like that, without relaying any of that information to distributors of retailers seems pretty irresponsible. Kinda doubt many people from Madison/Milwaukee make the trip for Oso to be able to stand behind their product, honestly.

 

They put that Facebook/Twitter post up about the distro'd beers about two days after it hit stores and sold out at many places in the same day it arrived. I'm sure at least a few bottles were opened by then.

 

I like to think that I keep up with the local breweries and I had no idea there were issues with these beers. Same for a buddy of mine who brought blackberry over. We popped it and almost immediately knew something was up. Kind of dismissed it and drank the bottle. Then on Friday, while running around for BCBS I stumbled upon a bottle of Poblano. Popped that on Friday night and instantly noticed zero carb and totally infected. That's when I started to look into the issues.

So, what about Joe Blow that happens into a store and buys one of these? He's definitely not going to be aware...

 

I saw a single 8.5x11" sign near the bottle line at the brewery that asked people to keep them at room temperature for a week to allow for carbonation. Nothing else. It was never stated that these beers are not carbonated, only that they weren't yet very carbonated.

 

In general I feel people are far too hard on breweries regarding infections and QC issues. I thought people overreacted on Peruvian Morning and shit on CW an unreasonable amount over it. CW really seemed to be trying hard to solve the problem and truly seemed to care. I've never stopped buying from someone due to QC issues.

That said, O'so may have crossed the line for me. I haven't experienced any infection myself in this batch but the lack of carb (a trade partner opened one I sent him last night and it was still totally flat), sending it out to distributors knowing they have an issue instead of waiting, the 2012 infection, and perhaps worst of all serving 2012 on tap despite knowing it was infected is just too much. Problems happen, but it just seems like they don't care that they're happening.

 

This pretty much sealed the deal for me. I'm done buying any more of the BB Night Train beer. I will buy their funky brews since I know what to expect from those.

 

They do enough events in Milwaukee and Madison that we should be able to return these beers to one of their reps, instead of driving to Plover. You would think if you are aware of a problem with one of your beers that you sent out to distribution, you would keep testing it and communicate with your customers. Almost been a month, how much more carbonation can you realistically expect to happen?

 

I noticed last week they were selling the BBNT on tap at The Sett in Union South (UW-Madison campus.) Today I walked in and they have an additional sign up saying they are selling the 750s... of course, because of the setting, they must be consumed on site if purchased.

Do you think they are paying attention to the feedback going on? Has anyone addressed the issue more firmly on the FB page or any other public forum with them?