Refunds for 2015 Regular BCBS and 2015 Prop

Actually, except for the unprecedented magnitude of this situation and coping with that, their handling seems consistent with the two prior occasions when they had a problem with a barrel aged beer (long before the purchase).

 

I see your point but AFAIK, they're the only ones doing ba bottles on such a large scale. This gives them more to worry about then smaller breweries with a smaller amount of product at risk.

A few posts here have mentioned far worse methods of dealing with infection issues. For example, rhinegeist, a Cincinnati brewery, had similar issues with their Sherry barrel ink. Their answer was to come out and say "Uh, it was supposed to do that, deal with it"

 

Are you equating these "lesser quality bourbon barrels" with the lactobacillus contamination? If so, that is a an assumption/association on your part but candidly no basis in fact unless you have something you have not shared. No more than an assumption that "cheap" mass produced beer would have more issues with infection (which it seems they don't--albeit an assumption on mine).

You seem very educated/informed on the subject but certainly a lot of speculation on your part and that's what happens before the facts come in (if they ever do).

Enjoying the discussion.

 

Just cracked open a Sept 22 1425 delish as usual no fears

 

Wow so not AB fault just size thing imagine that

 

well. what i'm saying is more so, the operation was smaller, 2012 & prior they used almost exclusively 12-18 year old Heaven Hill barrels (pretty likely what became Elijah Craig brand). now their barrel-house has Wild Turkey, Makers Mark, Buffalo Trace, Heaven Hill, Beam & i've probably forgotten a few other distillers. we don't have to fight over whether " lesser quality bourbon barrels" is what got them. what we can assume is all those distillers didn't get together, dump their barrels in some coordinated fashion & uniformly supply them to GI. rather, it's more likely they've come through multiple sources, handled multiple ways, over who knows what time-frames. we can also assume GI abandoned its use of "14 year old average aged barrels", because we can read the barrel-heads in their warehouse & see the imprinted dates no longer make that a viable conclusion.

more so than the "lesser quality barrel" angle, i'd wager the wide range of barrel influx is more likely to present a broader range of QC issues & inconsistencies.

 

Still going to sit on my theory that the issue had to do with microflora being introduced (or existing) in a specific part of the barrel warehouse that contaminated the barrels at some point after they were filled. This would explain why some batches are worse off than others (those closest to the bacteria colony would have a higher number of cells) as well as why some batches (Regal, *most* Regular, and Rare... along with certain barleywines and coffees) are not showing any signs at all.

If the issue was with lower quality barrels, or the way that the barrels were handled, 2014 BCBS would be showing signs too. Those are the barrels they use for BCBBW. Since it isn't (despite being a bit on the thin side, it's clearly not infected), that rules out anything having to do with how those barrels were handled prior to being received at GI.

I do hope they tells us what they eventually figure out. It's quite interesting, imho.

 

Im not gonna lie. I thought this was all BS but after all the back and forth I cracked one of my bottles yesterday. 10/21 15:21. Sour and not like the bottle I enjoyed back in December.

I have a few different time stamps so I put one stamped 15:23 in my fridge and cracked it as well. Also sour.

Now sitting on 7 bottles of infected beer. I really hope I get my money back

 

Just tried a 2015 BCBS on Friday with 2 other experienced tasters and we drain-poured it. Not looking good for my personal stash. 13.7% ABV.

 

that doesn't really rule out anything. there is in fact the possibility that the barrels ascertained for 2015 contaminated the emptied 2014 bcbs barrels (after they were emptied & 2014 bcbs was bottled). there's also the possibility the 2014 barrels reused for barleywine are the originating source of the bacteria you speak of possibly falling under attack in the time frame between the refill with BW. anything is possible. not sure what was ruled out there.

EDIT : we've also concluded there was 1 batch of coffee released. possibly only 2 of BW. that again screws up the "good batch/bad batch" talk. some bottles haven't turned.

 

late cause i really don't have the time but you're just repeating what i laid out 4 years back & predicted was going to happen when the buyout & warehouse move was in play. you can imagine what kind of reaction i got too, just read the reactions in these 2015 BCBS threads then maybe multiply em' to the 10th power!

summary: i said GI moved to a huge warehouse right when it was apparent the barrel supply they'd relied on was depleting & unlikely to hold up, especially in expanded capacity. i explained Elijah Craig 18 was about to disappear - much to gasps & say it ain't so's. it happened - didn't it? they just finally brought it back. i pointed out HH was expected to introduce EC barrel strength to distract from the 18's disappearance. that happened too, didn't it? i said Elijah Craig 12 year old was likely to eventually lose it's age statement too. that's happening as we speak, ain't it? i said it was unlikely GI would be able to keep up a 14 year average & particularly of exclusively Heaven Hill barrels. that's obviously happened too - hasn't it?

in one discussion i distinctly remember 1 joker saying GI had so much muscle, they'd always be able to negotiate and dictate the premium barrel supply of their choice. what was crazy about his thoughts was the subject in that part of the discussion was GI's inability to bottle their wheated BCBS - which, IIRC, he was the one who pointed out they used Rebel Yell barrels to age it. i couldn't help but notice his self-inflicted wound, which i asked: if GI had so much influence & muscle then & going forward into the future, what in the world were they doing fucking around with Rebel Yell barrel's then? we're still waiting to hear back from dude. i guess he's still typing.

furthermore, i pointed out photos from GI's barrel-house showed another clue Heaven Hill didn't want known - but again you'd have to be in the know to decipher it. many of the barrel-heads GI had - were stenciled "Heaven Hill", but they also displayed the original coding. if you know the codes, many of those barrels were actually filled with spirit produced at Early Times distillery. IOW, it was contract distilled by another entity, Heaven Hill didn't produce it.

as you said, it could be explained a number of ways. i offered the main logical explanation 4 years in advance. i'm not blowing my own horn here. it's just funny to again face a stadium full of --- "YOU ASSUME A LOT".

 

Here in Texas I haven't had any bad BCBS, but its interesting that I'm now seeing tons of cases of it showing up at locations all around Austin. Seems like the distributor is dumping product that they might have been cellaring for future release. Or maybe they got more from GI; either way its strange that in the middle of this a beer that hasn't been seen in months is showing up widely.

 

I am going to drink one this weekend and report back. BTW, a local shop just put out another case of BCBS this week.

 

Haha looks like you might be right after all. I remember hoping you were wrong at the time.

 

What's craziest to me is that "tons of cases" is in no way an exaggeration. I had no idea there was this level of volume held back, but whoever had it is shamelessly dumping it ASAP. If Twitter had comments, I would have left a few smartass ones by now.

 

I don't quite understand, this issue was identified shortly after release and recalled quickly. refunds were given through at least feb, whether you drank the beer or not. It is nearly 8 months later now. I would say that unless people got ill and there is a civil suite against GI that it should be case closed? GI has been an upstanding respected part of the beer community for decades and unless i'm totally missing something this should be a dead issue.
when I get a sub par beer my motto is.. "when life hands you a bad beer, marinate a tri tip"

forgive me if I am out of line here as I just stumbled onto this thread and felt I would give my 2 cents.

As far as distributors still trying to unload these beers because they were too lazy to send them back and get a refund, well that is just bad business and you should complain to them and stop dragging GI through the mud.

apologies berto.

 

They only refunded for Coffee and Barleywine. This thread is about regular BCBS, and also Prop is infected. They haven't dealt with either of those yet.

 

Just opened a 02 OCT 15 1106 with bad results. Initially, nose and taste were a bit off but drinkable. Upon warming, the nose was terrible followed by an un-drinkable taste. Sad to say it was a drain pour. All of my BCBS had been properly cellered at 55 degrees.

 

I know what you mean and it's what I'd rather do personally, but bars are far busier in the summer.

 

As a former retailer at a large wine & beer store I can say that there would be no consistency on this across the country. Not all distributors even take back out of code beer let alone off or infected beers. If the distributor won't do it then the stores that they service won't either :/