Refunds for 2015 Regular BCBS and 2015 Prop

Goose has responded...

 

Good. Looking forward to hearing as much more information as possible as soon as possible.

 

not trying to be an ass. reading the announcement, right away i come away with them saying they did find conclusive data on Coffee & Barleywine. they also mention they pride themselves on being transparent. a good way to prove that is to transparently inform us what their conclusive data is.

 

I opened a coffee two weeks ago and it was awesome, wish I had more.

 

That's good to know. I've only opened one of my regulars around Christmas, still have 5 more, and then PROP, Regal, BW, Coffee too try.

 

Start opening.

 

FWIW I opened a Rare over the weekend. It was fantastic. None of the nasty flavors like the Barlywine.

 

I think the big distinction here is that the reports for regular (and prop) are pretty sporadic, often subtle and no-where near as consistent as for Barleywine and Coffee. I went through almost an entire case of Barleywine and all were terrible, and undeniably off - dumped the lot. I know plenty of people who had similar experiences with both coffee and barleywine.

Frankly, I don't know a single person who has had anything other than awful barleywine in the last 2 months - when an issue is clear cut, then it is easier to act. Given that tons of people are still drinking delicious prop and regular with no issues, it is pretty hard for GI to do anything substantial.

It all comes down to the percentages - if 80% of barleywine and coffee is "off" (or whatever they want to call it), then that is a pretty easy decision, but if only 5% or 10% of regular is off, then what? What if they can't pinpoint a cause? A particular batch, or anything like that? Do you really expect them to issue a blanket refund same as for coffee and BW?

 

Had a Coffee 2 weeks ago. It was a bit thin compared to what I recall from previous years (and draft this year), but I was pleasantly surprised there were no off scents/flavors.

 

Opened a Rare'15 this past weekend and made spicy chili with a '15 reg. Other than sitting through a full New York Times Sunday morning, I didn't see or smell anything off putting from the BOTTLEs.

 

Drank my one and only coffee a month ago because I was getting nervous. It was delicious, not as coffee pronounced as in years past. No signs of infection though.

 

Bingo.

People may not accept the analogy to wine with inherent variability, corking, etc but there is some. Certainly the coffee/BW was a bust but the regular seems much less so. Seems they got it right on the refund issue to this point and this BA seems to feel there is some inherent risk on MY part as a consumer for this type of product.

No complaints here and I did purchase some regular. Will/haven taken my time to have the remaining with no complaints.

 

I have a case of 10NOV15 0955. I had a few soon after I bought them that were great but the last two were obviously souring. One I ended up drain pouring, the other was drinkable as long as I kept it very cold. Of course part of the pleasure of drinking BCBS is savoring it as it warms so needless to say it's a disappointment.

The rest are in the fridge and I'll give them a try unless Goose Island would like me to bring them in to prove it isn't all our imaginations.

 

Man, sorry to hear that. This is at least the third bottling date I've seen where one bottling time ages well and another doesn't.

It would be great to get one of the bottles that people are describing as souring to test with the other two. Not suggesting you send one, but if anyone is willing to send one I'll include it in the tasting.

 

I opened a 10NOV15 of Regular that was bad too. Crossing my fingers that the one remaining bottle I have will be okay.

 

Do you happen to know the bottling time on the one that was bad?

 

What they aren't doing is letting people mail in their bad bottles "FOR SCIENCE".

You would think, in their archives or cellar, they would have a bottle of each bottle run of every beer they have ever done.

 

I'm curious to see what their final word is on the topic. I can see a limited refund/return program for those in Florida or for certain bottling dates. I don't see the widespread program they did for BCBW or BCBCS. There are too many people still reporting good bottles.

 

@zizouandyuki I do not - sorry.

 

This seems so random, not sure what anyone could expect from GI right now . A problem no doubt, but anything conclusive , no. No doubt there are bad bottles out there, but can anyone isolate the problem? Or even the date or batch? Doesn't seem like it.