O'so/Funk Factory 4/4 release

Why do you keep calling it a Porter? It's an IMPERIAL Porter! That should impact our concept, right? You wouldn't judge an Imperial Stout or Imperial IPA as a Stout or IPA. ;-)

That's a tongue in cheek "touche." Look - bottom line is we can dance around the stylistic semantics but fact is it's flawed judged as Imperial Porter / Stout. No one that's tasted it from the bottle has thus far claimed it was anything but pretty damned tart, thin (even for an Imperial Porter), and berry flavored. Furthermore, I stand by one of my early points that the brewery either had to know this was this case and chose not to disclose OR didn't even bother to try the damned thing from a bottle before releasing. Neither of those cases are copacetic.

I'm still damned glad I bought a bunch of Fox and the Grapes because it's very tasty and I wish I'd jumped on things early enough to get cassis. I'm not hating on the brewery, I'll continue to buy the Lambic stuff, but the lack of transparency has me scared away from future non Funk Factory beers. Hope you can appreciate that.

 

You should; it's excellent. Framrood still takes top spot for me. I'd love to see a non-fruited beer again soon. Dweller on the Threshold was amazing. As much as I love fruited beers, I still appreciate a straighter lambic / gueuze / wild when done incredibly well.

 

Well we were just at the brewery yesterday and I picked up 3 bottles for myself. Not sure how many they have left, but it looked like there was a few on the shelf behind the bar, and I'm assuming more in cases.

 

I agree obviously those are the only two things that could have happened. Just like the only way you could be still discussing this is either you are easily butt hurt and cannot handle even the slightest thing not going your way OR you think your understanding of what it takes to brew, barrel age, and bottle condition beers is advanced enough to fully comprehend any possible mistakes a brewery could make and thus narrow it down to two possibilities which involve the brewery being negligent/malicious.

No information you have put forth in your many posts has been helpful. You also only seem to know enough about the subject at hand to be dangerous. Setting aside what O'so did or didn't do wrong your opinions only muddy the waters further and hinder useful information about what's going on. So kindly f$%k off.

 

What's up with all the talk about stout vs porter? It's a pretty fuzzy line, but stouts use roasted malts, while porters do not. Whether or not O'so followed that with their classification is unknown. It has nothing to do with the body or color or whatever. Doubtful you'd be able to tell a difference in taste especially with barrel aging and other flavoring being added.

Anyway, I'll be opening a BA coconut tonight, so I can give my thoughts on it. I'm expecting the slight tartness from the crappy barrels, as most people have been reporting, but as long as it's carbed and has a nice coconut flavor, I'll be happy with it.

 

What other possibilities are there besides them not trying the beer so being unaware of the tartness or trying it and just not disclosing it? I'm honestly curious.

That aside, it was door number 2. I wrote to the brewery and received an email from them in which they stated that they tasted it before hand, tested it for infection, noted it was tart but not infected. So they did know and didn't disclose. This is not my opion; it's fact. They also offered to exchange the beer so kudos to them for offering some after the fact customer service and being civil.

I imagine many people appreciate knowing what a beer tastes like. You're saying it's not helpful to know that a BA coconut imperial porter is sour and tastes like berries?!? Have you tried the beer from a bottle before slinging profanities? I don't pretend to know what it takes to brew or barrel age. But as a consumer I know enough to expect people to accurately describe what I'm buying. Cheers to you!

 

Actually they did disclose it quite some time ago:

They proved it isn't infected, which is the only detail that matters. The beer is brewed exactly as the label states, so whatever weird barrel flavors came along with it is unfortunate, but nothing more. I'm sure you've a million beers that have a disappointing flavor. I sure have. No reason for an uprour though.

 

Nice. Wish that had come with the brownpaper tickets info. Too bad I missed it. I guess I'm more of a stickler and think not-infected is table stakes and other details do matter (like an "oxidative effect").

No uproar on my part; I thought I stayed civil and merely pointed out that this isn't the type of flavor profile one would expect from a BA coconut imperial stout and it's likely many will find it off-putting. A "blend that we deemed acceptable" doesn't sound like they were really proud of the outcome and isn't something I would have chosen to spend money on had I known. Hell, it says something that they're not going that route again. If that reasonable like is an "uproar" I guess I'm guilty. Seemed there was more uproar in defence (e.g. I'm butt hurt, I should shut up and go away, etc.) I'll pay closer attention before the next release which is, I believe, a number of night train variants.

 

I don't spend a lot of time on BA, and didn't see the email/post from O'so on the clarification of the barrel situation. To me, the berry flavor was unexpected and unwanted. I have had beers that were maybe more dry, roasty, or boozy than expected. I don't make a stink about those qualities because they were inherent in the style, but more prevalent than I would have like. Personally, I think the uproar over this should have been expected. Hopefully the next round of barrels work out and the beer turn out great.

 

I would hardly describe the things you've to this point said as useful information or reporting. There is a big difference between reporting information/your opinion and speculating about motives and causes without anything to back it up besides speculation. I have no opinion of the beer as I was not able to attend the release. Even though you ended up being right in a sense it doesn't make it right.

I apologize for the profanity its something I say often to mean "shut up", "move a long", "get out of here". I wasn't angry its a force of habit.

Of all your posts that you posted so far this one actually contains pertinent information. I have had to talk to Katina several times about things I've purchased I always had the option to exchange or get a refund. You should never believe otherwise until you try to contact the brewery. Mark and Katina happen to be great people I'd have a hard time believing they'd do anything but make good on anything you or anyone else was unhappy about.

I'm sure most of us could go back and fourth about their QC all day long but the fact is they have there own lab now and they are using it. People weren't this hard on CW for Peruvian morning and they are a much bigger brewery than O'so with a lot more capabilities.

 

I don't think it's a QC issue here at all. It really comes down to a business decision. Based on the Oso response posted above, they knew it wasn't infected but they also knew the ancient barrels had created a flavor that wasn't originally intended. They deemed it acceptable and released it. As previously mentioned, although this info was available they did not include it on the BPT site. If they had, in my opinion it would have led many individuals to make different decisions on their purchase.

 

I agree with you. The difference between your comment and others before you though is that you used accurate information to arrive at a conclusion and only accuse them of what they have done not what you think or assume they did.

I'm not going to argue against someone making a valid point about the actions of a brewery like O'so releasing a beer with known off flavors or not making that info well known. I will however maintain that saying they have poor QC and intentionally released an infected beer is inaccurate and potentially slanderous.

 

While I agree with everything you just said, I think it would be better practice to address someone's untrue or uninformed post with something more than a negative retort. This is Beer "Advocate" by name. Had someone with more information than @Kurmaraja posted the original O'so response to off flavors and provided a description about the difference between this and an infection, the majority of the readers of this thread may have learned something interesting about beer they might not have known otherwise.

Even if you didn't have the information but wanted to direct them in the right direction, you could have told them to talk to the brewery, who is very open to communication, before posting accusations. I'm not saying it's your job to do so but it may be more helpful. Then maybe the topic would have turned into a debate about the decision O'so made to release it knowing there were unexpected flavors, as opposed to QC, which we are now aware isn't an issue at all.

None the less, cheers to everyone participating in this conversation and if you are going to DLD or are in the Chicagoland area hit me up and we can share a beer. Now let's direct our attention to Levi's beers because the Funk Factory stuff really deserves more praise, in my opinion.

 

If the mentions of inaccurate and untrue was aimed at me, the only errors I believe I made were accidentally swapping stout / porter and claiming they didn't disclose the sourness of the beer. The latter is the more importnant and, I admit, only partially true. For that I apologize to any that were offended and to the brewery if that makes any difference. That said, I'd ammend my comment and suggestion to say it would be nice if they had made the unexpected flavor profile broadly known, particularly at the point of sale (i.e. the brewery and brown paper tickets). That suggestion seems hard to argue against unless to take a hard "caveat emptor" line. Only attempting to "advocate" for good beer and on behalf of the consumer.

If it convinces folks who think I'm just a hater coming in here to spew vitriol otherwise, I'll add that I do plan to make the trip up there from Chicago whenever there next release comes. By no means was my intent to convince people to boycott. While there I had a handful of very good beers I would not have had the chance to sample otherwise: a couple hop variants of Hop Whoppin (both really good), Kartoffel Bock, Dominator Doppelbock, Wheat You Talkin Bout Wheatwine, Coffee Sweet Lady, Eis Dominator. This breadth of styles is experimentation I can fully get behind. I hadn't seen anything previously to indicate that they're making very good lagers - maybe I just overlooked it in discussions about porters and wilds - but IMHO that's a good sign of craft / care. As rare as eisbocks are, it was nice to stumble upon their monster take on the style. I hope to see some lighter lagers beyond the pils when I'm up there in warmer months.

 

Sorry, my first sentence wasn't directed at you but instead at many posts in many threads on BA where the poster attests to something, usually with a negative connotation, without getting all the information first. I completely agree the off flavors should have been made more transparent and at this time only O'so can attest to what they meant by "a blend...we deemed acceptable". Their statement that they won't use ancient barrels again leads me to believe they were unhappy with the output from them so it's interesting to me that they still decided to release it. Again though that's my belief and I cannot be sure. I think your first paragraph here is great for BA and hopefully for O'so, and any other brewery, if they are reading this.

Switching topics; has anyone opened a Sikaru recently?

 

I fortunately opted out of this one, but if I had thought I was buying a coconut imperial porter and had instead gotten a fruity/sour porter with a little coconut flavor, I would not be happy.

 

Body is significantly different in stouts vs porters in general. Most porters being thinner and less complex. Some poorer quality stouts will be porter like in body and taste but rarely will a porter have body and flavor like a good stout.

 

I opened a Sikaru not too long ago, my comments are in the following thread:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/funk-factory-geuzeria-cellar-thread.268227/

 

The body isn't very relevant to the style. It's probably a legacy thing, but it's not what drove the style. There are a million examples of stouts and porters that have thin and thick bodies on both sides, and it doesn't change the classification. The body of a beer is dependent on the sugars and gravity, both of which have little to do with a beer style. The grain is the absolute one thing that separated porters from stouts. A thick beer with roasted malts isn't going to magically be a porter. It's a stout because of those roasted malts.

It's pretty bold to say that a porter will rarely have the body and flavor of a good stout, because that's completely untrue. Many of the beers on this list are extremely thick and flavorful:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/lists/style/159/

Any beer can be made thick and flavorful by boiling off the water and/or adding a shit ton of unfermentable sugar.

 

@jegross2 O'so previously stated this beer isn't infected and did QC tests on it. I think we need to avoid calling it a QC issue when they plainly state that they picked up on the off flavors as well and still decided to release it. It is not a quality control issue as much as it is a business decision. One can argue there's a quality issue but it is controlled, known and even previously explained. Unless O'so comes out and explicitly addresses the issue all we can do is speculate. A previous poster contacted them and they agreed to refund. It's just unfortunate for buyers but beneficial to O'so that many of those buyers were from nowhere near Stevens Point.