Refunds for 2015 Regular BCBS and 2015 Prop

I've seen a couple local bars that had BCBS on tap for a week or two, my assumption is that at $12-$16 a pour, it scared a lot of people off. Everybody who ordered it was told the price and I saw most people almost fall out of their chairs. I assume these were normal drinkers who aren't used to paying the same price for a beer as they would an entree.

 

There are a lot of assumptions here. Personally, I think a producer should be responsible for their product and the consumer should not be at risk. The producer assumes that risk upon opening the business. If a producer has a "bad batch" and has to increase prices to off set it, then they have the risk of no one buying it because of the price and them going out of business (not likely). Those that have no issues can continue to price at reasonable levels (profit margins) and we can all bitch about those "over priced" releases. As far as flash pasteurization, I think a lot of people would rather have that then the chance of their product going bad. If you produce a high quality product out of the gate, is there really need for it develop over time, specifically BA stouts? I don't know too many BA stouts that start with ratings of 4.1 and then develop into 4.5's. They usually end pretty similar to where they start.

 

To your point, a fair number of brewers actually advocate drinking their BA stuff fresh as it has already been aged in the barrel and is ready to drink when released. Could be partly a CYA on their part, but I often prefer BA stuff fresh amd would definitely prefer pasteurization to infection.

 

The taproom has 6oz pours for BCBS due to cost and ABV, though I never ask how much they are. I believe it was $9. Same prices back in December/January and a keg was gone in a couple of days. Suppose it can be a number of factors; cost, out of season so folks not looking for it, bad press.

 

those are good points. another i'd add, the fact one can, in many instances, still find bottles if they really want them. that's probably removed some of the traffic jam & frenzy to rush out & run a bar tab whenever a keg goes on.

 

Many people just straight up are not looking for it right now. I have a little more than a case left and even though I've seen quite a few bottles hanging around recently, I'm waiting for this year's release.

 

I doubt the majority of beer drinkers are passing on BCBS out of cautiousness. As others have mentioned, it's warmer now, so people tend to drink lighter, more refreshing beers. But to address the caution portion specifically: I would imagine there are still a lot of craft enthusiasts who aren't even aware that there's been some "bad" BCBS going around (not everyone researches their beer online, like I do). And even if they do, I would imagine a lot of them assume "well, it's on tap, and no one is complaining about it, so I'm sure it's fine" (like I typically do, in this situation). They're probably passing because it's warm, or because $9 isn't cheap, especially for a 6 oz. pour.

In their shoes, my initial assumption would probably be that it's the customers' fault the beer went bad (hell, that was sort of my initial knee-jerk reaction even not in their shoes). If they found issues with Coffee and Barleywine, and none with the other variants, and all of the sudden what appears to be a few customers in Florida start having these issues, I'd assume that it was Florida's warmer weather wreaking havoc on the beer. It seems like once they realized that it wasn't just a few people keeping Bourbon County on their sunny Tampa Bay windowsill, they started looking into it (not necessarily acknowledging it, for fear of bad press that may not be warranted, but looking into it nonetheless). Once they realized it was an issue on their end, they issued a statement.

Now, I could be reaching there, but it doesn't seem out of the question that they handled this latest news as well as they could, given the info they had.

 

People also really don't hit bars as often in the summer. Why would I go to a bar and pay anywhere from $5-10 for a beer when I can fire up my grill and drink instead?

 

I think this analogy works better for DLD, you need to take precautions to protect your beer from thieves Just like your OS. The beer itself is fine.

 

Agreed, as they should. The only difference is I believe they should bear the responsibility for their product (which they have for BW and Coffee) and you think it should be a buyer beware scenario for all products that do not have a warranty. You may be technically correct but that doesn't make it a good business practice. In my opinion most of these decisions are made by a multitude of factors including cash flow, cost/benefit, perceived damaged, etc.. I think all businesses should make the morally correct decision, however, I understand that is not possible in all situations since it could bankrupt small companies. With those it would not bankrupt it comes down to straight cash, right or wrong.

 

Thanks for the info. If the four digit is the time stamp, then it seems even more strange that the best BCBS i've got was bottled only an hour before the worst.

With the variations that I've experienced so far, I can fully support your comments about comparing year to year.

 

Actually I'm not really intending to focus on what the buyer should or should not be responsible for but simply trying to make the point that both producers are/should be required to exhibit great care in the production of their product, that they both appear to do so, and that with the BCBS problem its premature to be predicting what GI will or will not do now that they have finally found there is a problem, but apparently do not yet understand how or why. Both of which should be in place before a remedy is chosen.

BTW: Software does come with a warranty. It typically boils down to "we aren't responsible for anything that goes wrong, use at your own risk" but for reasons such as those you mention they choose to develop fixes to the problem or go out of business.

 

Well, I did finally get my BCBS t-shirt yesterday, a few weeks after getting my refund check. Luck would have it though that I get cases of the 10/21/16 batch. I only got two from a different day, 10/23/16. I had one recently from the 10/21 and it's not terrible yet, but you know it's definitely off. It has a dark cherry/stone fruit characteristic that is subtle, but hard to ignore. Not like it was in year's past, which I luckily have on hand to compare it with.

I'd rather eat the cost of my 3 bottles that I got refunded for than be stuck with 2 cases of regular.

Develops in the bottle up to 5 years is still a true statement, just not a good development for this year's batch.

I know it's not on the same scale, but: DFH 120 Batch Dump (just a reminder)

 

Opened another Oct. 22nd bottle last night and had the same tart fruit flavors in the smell and nose. I am going to focus on getting these October bottles out of the way - I don't think I have too many of them, most are November.

 

Yup - I have a case of the same bottle date, and so far 5 of them have been tart... definitely getting worse too. I have been dumping some cold brew coffee in the glass before pouring to try and mask the off flavors, but even that is starting to not work...

 

It might the fact it is $7.50 for like an 8 oz pour as well. The downtown location was way more reasonable on Black Friday and a 10oz pour.

 

A few nights ago I got together with four other friends and we drank the 2015 versions of Bourbon County regular, coffee, barleywine, regal, and rare. We also had 2014 regular and 2009 regular. And for kicks Prairie Okie Coffee and 2014 Bell's Black Note Stout, albeit awesome, those two are neither here nor there in this one. From worst to best - Barleywine was definitely infected and undrinkable by most - bad vinegary wine. Coffee was definitely infected, but still drinkable by most. The regular 2015 was a 13.7% 09OCT15 1324. I specifically chose this one to see if it was okay. Actually it was fantastic, and most of us thought drank as good or better than the '09 or '14 regulars. Obviously regal and rare were both stellar. Memories... I have one more 13.7 Oct that I'll have some other day. If anything is off, I'll post. Otherwise you can assume it was delicious as the one I just had.

 

You had me until that last statement.

In my 30+ years of beer drinking, we have never had better access to incredible beer. With so many places out there, let the market decide what makes it and what doesn't. ?Time to start demanding better beer? In fact, I think the demand for such specialized things like barrel aged beer has opened up the door to beer what has been INHERENT in other things like wine.

When the risk/cost of barrel aging makes it hard to do it without unacceptable risk to the brewer, one of two things will happen--they will stop doing it or pass more of the risk/cost on to the consumers. It is not charity.

 

I would say read the article "No More Excuses" by Jason and Todd in the latest BA magazine. Yes, it's never been a better time to be a beer drinker, but there are also a lot of breweries doing mediocre beer and just skating by due to the newness of the craft beer boom.

 

You're quick--sorry made an edit.

Old established places and macro aside, starting to see the first mediocre places closing so certainly for new places, better be good as too much out there.