Refunds for 2015 Regular BCBS and 2015 Prop

When people stop having opinions or you take away their podium.

 

I agree that the distributors and merchants have a hand in hyping beers, but they can only effectively do that with very limited production runs. I think that much of the rarity is truly limited production, though tweaked a bit by distributing in single unique bottles with fancy labeling, having a nationwide release day, etc. Everyone involved is playing it up, but they'd make a ton more money by GI doubling, tripling or more - stopping somewhere short of demand. This would drive the price down slightly, but they'd make a ton more money by volume. It would lose a bit of it's cult status, but would still be an excellent beer in high demand. Other breweries crank out much more volume on their BA beers, but I suppose they have more room, reuse barrels more, and age it in the barrel a shorter time. I wonder if GI has expanded production much? If they expanded by 10% a year, it could be done quietly to preserve the cult following. What is the MSRP of BCBS? I found it for $9.99 and thought that was decent given the hype - paid more than that for a single KBS.

 

for the most part i agree with your thoughts on the overall matter. that said, GI does at least in part contribute to some of the problem. mainly, i think the whole setting a nationwide date for release & possibly the specific day they choose contributes to the problem. they should just let their beers be released when things are well in place in each region/distributor.

case and point. in 2014 due to the rush of meeting the Black Friday release, everything initially released & sold here in the first distribution wave was misspriced because the distributors hadn't adjusted the pricing from previous years. we found Vanilla Rye for $21 out the door (that included CA taxes, CRV) when really here, we later learned, $24.95 + taxes and fees was the expected (fair) retail price. i am told this issue ran from here (CA) to as far as Montana. if you were a lucky store that got stock directly related to or on the Monday after Black Friday, chances are everything you received was $20 or more per case beneath the intended wholesale price. yes i understand the distributors fucked up there. part of their missing the issue was the rapid deployment to meet the set release date demands.

 

Yes that does seem simple, from one perspective.

But consider the role of other players here besides you and the brewery. (And we'll continue to assume all of the folks involved, including customers, are going to play fairly and legally.)

Since you live in CA you couldn't return a full bottle. That's one of the states that doesn't allow return of unopened alcoholic beverages. So your plan is going piss off some people for making them pour their beer to be eligible. (Since you've set no time limit on the refund program that means somebody has to be monitoring it for a very long time to pay that refund 6 years from now since if you don't you'll piss off those people who waited 7 years rather than 5 to see how the beer aged.) You're also going to piss off some of those folks who actually did happen to get a bad bottle and then poured their beer. They put their empties in the recycling bin a few days or even weeks before you announced your refund plan. Of course if you require receipts you'll piss off those folks who don't save receipts.

Then there are the folks who happened to be in CA on business and bought a half dozen bottles to take back to one of those states where refunds are either not allowed or are only allowed on alcohol purchased within that state and so require a receipt. You'll piss them off because they either have to fly back to CA to do the exchange or find and drive to another state or just helplessly sit by and watch some folks easily get a refund while others get nothing.

Now consider the perspective of the store owner. Why would they agree to participate in something the brewery asks for when they didn't buy the beer from the brewery in the first place? Who is going to reimburse them for the record keeping? Who is going to dispose of the bottles or cover those costs. (Who's allowed or required to by law?) Who's doing all this work and paying all these costs--the brewery, the distributor, the retailer or some combination of the above? (Who's allowed or required to by law?) So the distributors have to agree and be able to agree to participate as well and even then there are still lots of details have to be sorted out.

Now that's just in CA. In states where refunds on full bottles are allowed, who's going to (or is legally required to) assume responsiblity for and supervise the environmental and legal requirements for destroying the bottles and contents? Effectively there are 52 different government involved in alcohol regulation, all of which set rules for how these things have to happen with alcoholic beverages.

Frankly, the more I think about the issues raised in this thread the more understanding I'm developing of why a brewer may choose to do a direct recall/refund as GI has done for some of their 2015 beers, and for other beers in the past. Also, while I'm not sypathetic to the approch I can also better understand why some breweries have simply ignored or pretended this problem did not exist. (Also why a few have quietly just dropped all or part of their barrel aging programs entirely.)

 

I'd think the vast percentage of pasteurized bottled/canned beer in the US is still tunnel pasteurized (as described by bbtkd) - with flash pasteurization used by some US brewers who keg pasteurized beer.

 

Thanks. I wasn't aware of the fact that the big breweries such those doing Budweiser and Miller Coors, etc. were still using tunnel pasteurization and had thought the tunnel pasteurization was mostly associated with the smaller breweries with older "second hand" equipment. (Much as with bottling lines where it seems the high end, more expensive, Krones lines are typically found in larger more established breweries.)

 

The absurdity is suing over a product that objectively does not cause you physical harm (well, any more than any beer with that high of an abv). Of course they should offer a recall or refunds, but suing them because it didn't taste good? That's just ridiculous.

 

Eh, it's really not. Lots of things that don't cause physical harm still cause damages in the legal sense when you are out money but don't receive what you paid for. You purchased product A (delicious BCBS) and received product B (BCBS that tastes like ass). It's the same as any other contract dispute for the sale of goods really: I purchased a red shirt and received blue; I purchased an Apple computer and received a Dell. It's a standard principle of contract law: if you contract for the purchase of a particular good, and it is not provided in the condition/form agreed upon, the purchaser is entitled to damages. Damages can be measured in various ways, the most common of which is the difference in value between the goods as promised and the goods as delivered. Whether you believe people should not bother suing over these things is a separate question, but the legal principle is fairly sound. The difficulty in this case would be proof; you would need an expert to testify what BCBS "should" taste like and how it actually did, but this isn't impossible either. But I have no doubt a case like this would withstand a motion to dismiss on legal grounds.

 

The product was good when it was sold. If the consumers actually consumed it there would be no problem. They aged it and it went bad in their hands/cellars. Not saying it is right/ wrong but honestly if they just drank it there would be no problem. It sure did change in the bottle .

 

Has anyone that thinks a lawsuit is a potential option actually contacted an attorney about it and tried to get the process going? It seems like that would be the logical step if you thought it was warranted. I realize that some people opining on the viability of a lawsuit may not actually be involved with having purchased BCBS, but certainly some folks on here have and are quite upset about it.

 

Had an 02OCT15 1129 bottle last weekend...

Still amazing. Carry on.

 

A friend pitched the idea to me and I passed. I prefer to see how their response plays out, but I'm sure a motivated lawyer could find a plaintiff to make this happen. It's more likely for a case like this to start with the lawyer than the plaintiff.

Yes and no. There was clearly an inherent flaw in the product when sold, aka a "latent defect." So that wouldn't stand in the way of the claim in my opinion. I'm sure GI's lawyers would use that as a defense, but the fact that the bottle encourages consumers to age for up to 5 years would not be a good fact for them.

 

Would not be surprised if this statement was taken off of their bottles in the future. "Develops in the bottle for up to 5 years" is misleading in more ways than one. For example: 1) interpreting it to mean "develops [off flavors] for up to 5 years" would not be in line with consumer expectation (i.e., no one purchased this knowing it would be sour); and(2) implying that it would stop developing upon 5 years is also incorrect.

I don't know if there were initial bottles that were infected -- nothing has been established yet -- the podcast merely said that they did not find that strain of bacteria or faults when bottling.

Damages are not simply restricted to those spawning from bodily injury -- whether or not someone is harmed in that sense is besides the point. This might be your run of the mill negligence, products./marketing liability. Doubt a consumer who has bought just a few bottles can put up a retainer to even initially consult with an attorney. Even if so, settlement is more likely then trial in any event (i.e., why waste the time). Good luck dealing with AB Inbev's attorneys.

 

Looks like they're announcing a refund today for BCBS Reg and Prop.

 

Really? That's awesome news if so!

 

http://gooseisland.com/bcsrefund.html

site is not live yet, but I was able to get this so far:

"We have identified nine bottling dates for 2015 Bourbon County Stout Original and one 2015 Proprietors that have identified off flavors."

Waiting to get more info, but looks like they're going to refund you only if you have one of those batches.. which is fair imho.

 

Yeah, agreed. Thanks for the info, nice work!

 

Hope I don't need a receipt (who the hell has receipts from November?). I'll gladly bring them the bottles as proof though.

 

The cached version of the site I found seemed to indicate the process will involve:

Fill out an application for refund. Attach the neck tag from the bottle as well as a picture of the back of the bottle.

Mail it to Goose Island. They'll process it and send you a refund.



But...it's really hard to see the picture so I can't say for sure if that's exactly how it's going to work until the site goes up

 

We did it!