Oddside Ales and tart BA stouts

I don't know. Was it?

 

I'm not sure either. I wasn't involved in that process (wasn't even aware of it, actually, and received a bottle of MW from someone earlier this year and drank it and it was fine). Maybe someone who was involved has some sort of official statement OSA made about it.

 

I thought I remember that being the case but I'm no authority on it.

 

Is there a lab tech with some free time in the house???

*edit* without connections or blinding love for Oddside

 

Have you proven that it's not an infection?
Or does only one side of the argument need to prove things

 

They didn't say I was infected. They said it was not up to their standards when they bottles it, so, replaced it. I wasn't going to trade my last 4-5 in and they insisted.

 

All in time, all in time...

 

Can't tell whether that's a diabolical or zen statement... either way, I like it

 

In this case with Oddside, you can't answer that question. They aren't listing a best by date on their bottles and they are clearly using that to hide behind with their stance.

As a business, if that's the route you're gonna my to take, it's shoddy customer relations. Especially when others have pointed out they have released cellared stouts for retail sale prior. It was okay to sell an extremely similar aged product one day but when another sku fails after only a few months, then all of a sudden there's no accountability. There aren't any business morals in that approach.

It's fun playing devils advocate for them but at the end of the day, there is a right and wrong way to handle business with your customers. They missed that memo.

 

As a consumer I don't think it's unreasonable for a beer to have a 6 month shelf life. I'm talking any style beer. Like others have pointed out, Bell's puts a 6 month life on their IPA's. Budweiser's best by date is 180 days as well. In fact I think lasting at least 6 months would benefit the brewery if you take into account distribution, rotation at a store, etc. I don't expect a beer to taste exactly the same at 6 months, but the base of the beer should still be there and typically is. Most regular beer consumers aren't checking dates on bottles IMO. And if a beer isn't going to last at least 6 months, I think a lot of retailers are going to be throwing away more beer than anyone realizes.

 

Prophetic.

Regardless, I wouldn't be so confident with my statements if...

 

I'm going with the law of averages on this one since it's not date coded, it's really the only thing we have to go on. I think we all agree that the majority of stouts, barrel aged or not should be good for 6 months, or it least very close to their original taste. The higher the ABV, the longer it should last, typically. I don't think Hipster is holding up to any measurement that I can think of when compared to almost all other stouts I have had, especially with high ABV.

As others have said Bells puts it right on there and I am going to assume if Black Note was as far off as Hipster after 3 plus months, they would do something about it. I was a supporter of OSA, unfortunately now I will be spending my $'s elsewhere.

 

I don't think it's quite as simple as a lab tech donating their time... You're probably talking about some kind of pcr yeast/bacterial panel but from a quick Google search I didn't see anyone offering this service. Designing these tests yourself would be a huge amount of work.

...and for what reason? To me it's clear the end result would be the same, confirmation of infection. The last bbimm I had in early February was clearly infected, with all the other posts here we're beyond the point of speculation (for some of the bottles anyway).

Still, how many pages can this go on saying the exact same thing?! If the brewery isn't acknowledging this issue that they have to realize is legitimate is it really worth trying to brow beat them into submission over? Even if doing so might be financially ruinous for them? Seems to me it might be time to learn whatever lesson you feel needs to learned from this and move on.

 

Yes. Is it worth calling out a company that collected money in exchange for a failed product? HELL YES! I don't understand where all this bleeding heart bullshit comes from.

 

Cracked my last Hipster tonight... The tart cherry was intense. Drain pour for me after a few sips which was disappointing. Looks like I better start speeding through my Hazels just in case.

 

I see it more as not freaking out over... $20 of beer? $100? To each their own. Carry on ha ha.

 

$20...haha

 

I was pretty much over this until the white knights showed up to stir the pot. There are some legit lab techs that are BA's, just saying.

 

What are the carb levels like in these "infected" bottles?

 

Why do the people with good bottles seem to be pissed at those with bad bottles? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Haha