Refunds for 2015 Regular BCBS and 2015 Prop

I had a great experience on the refund, so can't really comment, but for the variants, I guess they handled it internally, but for the flagship beer, I imagine someone is going to have a chat with the bosses at ABInBev...

 

All the Maple bottles are from a single batch, and a small minority of them have issues.

we think so, yes.

 

Good.

Are you able to share your best guess at this point?

I'm not a pro or even an amature brewer (just an amateur drinker ), but I'm finding this stuff fascinating from the problem solving/detective work perspective.

 

These beers taste best when carbonated really softly, so the challenge when bottling them is to get proper foam breakout and cap on foam. At a low carb level this can be hard to achieve and oxygen can get introduced into some of the bottles. maple oxidizes to make a particularly weird flavor, not just the usual cardboard notes but something more like green apple.

 

so in the case you speak of, a particular ingredient possibly exaggerated the off-ness (made up word)?

question is if this GI issue is similar to your own experience, & factor in it spans across differing base beers & barrel acquisitions - while oxidation sounds like it might be playing some role, what common thread (whether ingredient or brewery misstep) would be turning each variant sour? for me there's a distinguishable difference between off notes or significant oxidation compared to unmistakably souring beer. i'm far from an expert on this or anything for that matter, so forgive if i'm overlooking something obvious.

 

Got a bunch left. If any of my bottles taste off? Time to fire up some BCBS ice cream or cupcakes.

Incidentally, had an giant pour of '15 last week at, oddly enough, the Wynn sports book bar.

[4truth spies the Goose tap handle with BCBS placard]

Me: Wow, is that Bourbon County stout?
Barkeep: Huh? Don't know. Wanna try it? (pulls out a 20oz pilsner glass)
Me: Ha ha, whoa. That would be an enormous amount of stout.
Barkeep: That's the only size glass we have.
Me: How much is it?
Barkeep: $15.
Me: I'll take it.

 

Better time any time to try. 6 month mark.

Bought in NM. Sat in beer fridge at 45 degrees since Black Friday.

11NOV15 0754
14.3% ALC/VOL

Sat out a day. Drinking at straight room temp.

Smelt and tasted just as great as it always has/had. Pour seemed about as carbonated and fizzy as past years. Strong co2, with a nice head that dissipates quickly

Now sitting with one bottle left.

Bourbon and some heat on the nose. Taste is this sweet bourbon blend, some wood, chocolate. I am catching a slight IBU bite. I wouldnt call it sour. I'd have to sit here and really LOOK for stuff to catch anything off. I won't be doing that. I will enjoy this festive May 2nd

Signed,

-one of the lucky ones

(For reference, I drank 1 of the same dated/abv bottles on BF weekend and that was just great).

 

Just to let you know the bottle that I just opened is perfect. I'm throwing my case in the fridge just in case though.

10/9/15 919

 

Are you saying that you suspect the issue with the 15 BCBS is oxidation?

If so, I wholeheartedly disagree. I've had plenty of oxidized ba stouts in my time, and there is a very, very clear difference between oxidized and infected. It could be a combination of infection and oxidation, but this beer is most certainly infected.

 

I won't say that this article necessarily addresses your BCBS, but it does speak to many of the off-flavors reported in this thread by others: http://www.professorbeer.com/articles/oxidative_staling_beer.html

Without having tasted any of the beers with off-flavors, I won't surmise that they are either infected or oxidized. Just thought this was worth reading given the numerous posts calling out metallic flavors. The sherry flavors may also be akin to some of the other flavors being reported.

 

Thankfully enjoying a bottle that tastes the way it should. Oct 6, 2015 1135, 14.3%. Purchased in central CA. After half a mouthfull of BC barleywine that was badly infected this discussion mad me very nervous and made me empathetic toward those with bad bottles. Each of my bottles are within a few minutes of each other on the time stamp. I'm guessing that when posting Reg BC '15 one needs to include the time stamp to help reduce the possibility of an infected bottle. Seems that reading through this that 10/21 was a bad day. Somewhere someone broke protocol and the nastiness snuck in.

 

Unfortunately oxidation makes more sense. Infections would lead to a higher carbonation level, mine was almost flat. I am putting money on shitty seals on those fancy new bottles.

 

I have the same thing from my nov. Bottles and being so close to chi ago,is saddening, these were Very very gokd to begin with, and now they taste bad,and get worse every week,

 

Good to hear, man! Yeah, mine was absolutely stellar. Savored the hell out of it - spent some quality time with the wife and dog while watching some Chef's Life on PBS.

 

Bingo. I pulled one out last night, October 15 (a supposedly suspect batch). It's been in my beer refrigerator. I poured it cold and mostly let it warm a bit in the glass. It was fine. Nothing sour, no off flavors or smells. But like you I did get some bitterness/IBUs I didn't expect or remember from any prior BCBS. It's almost like the bitterness you get on the finish with Guinness. Not unpleasant generally, but unwanted in this particular beer.

I've got 3 more with that date, and one September bottle. I'll hold the September bottle for a four year vertical tasting when the 2016 is released.

 

ok. then let's assume infection does always = higher carbonation. and lets also assume there's shitty seals on those fancy new bottles. wouldn't higher carbonation (or the effects of infection) be something that would expose the shitty seals even more? as stated before, sounds like oxidation is part of the equation here, but the souring across each iteration/variant? to me seems more like infection may be what's driving the oxidation.

 

Except that then we'd expect the use of words like "gusher," "gushing," etc. in the reports in this thread along with or as part of the reports off flavors. Two thread internal searches on each of those words indiates that the only person to use one of those two words was deciribing a beer from a different brewery.

Also note that the problem reported by Grimm was described as them having done thorough lab testing on their samples with negative results and so diagnosing the off-flavors problem as having another cause.

 

those are good points & don't take this as me not buying what you are suggesting. these are my thoughts or questions in response.

the caps aren't blowing off, but if they are slowly letting pressure escape - is it possible you wouldn't wind up with true gushers as well as oxidation? here's what i remember. 2014 release there were plenty of reports of moldy cases, moldy caps, moldy 4 pk carriers & moldy labels - that was almost certainly the result of significant breakage. here's what i know, root beer style bottles are notoriously hard to break. Budweiser bottles are notoriously weak & easy to break. the new bottles probably don't have 'shittier cap seals' but what they do have is a much sturdier structure - i.e. they don't BLOW OUT at the bottoms as easily. factoring that in, does it seem reasonable to ask whether it's possible the pressure you guys speak of is forcing it's way out the caps instead of blowing out the glass?

i also noted what Grimm described. to me sounded like a key ingredient turning offensive due to oxidation. i can go for that. so. going for that, my question was, what is that key ingredient in regular BCBS, BCBSC and BCBW? we're talking 3 different beers, 2 sharing a base, 1 a completely different make & style. 2 possibly sharing sibling barrels, 1 using a completely different barrel set. what's the magical ingredient that spans those 3 iterations, that oxygen is attacking & making all 3 taste/smell like the same soured dark fruit?

 

Plastic allows air to leech through without letting liquids pass through. It is possible. Infection usually is not oxidizing. My beer was carbonated to a degree, but even a hard pour netted no head, yet another sign of under carbonation. This is all speculation, but seems more likely than an infection.
Yes, poor seals could allow infection to take hold, but I doubt oxidation would occur, pressure differential and what not come in to play. The common denominator through all of this is bottles. They all have the new style bottles, and if they were rushed by the manufacturer I could see poor seals leading to off gassing, and temp changes leading to an ingress of oxygen. Is it what's going on? Maybe not, but I do think oxidation sounds like a better description of my experience than infection.

 

for some reason I always have one of these within a day or two of reading this thread.... subliminal advertising .....