Health Violation at Twin Cities Breweries

What a bunch of nothing, IMO. But those local TV news "Investigators" gotta investigate!

 

fake news.

 

It didn't sound like "fake news" to me (the intellectually challenged and emotionally unstable President Tweety Bird and his accomplices had nothing to do with this piece)

I thought it was actually a very well produced and thought provoking report.

And, like it or not, as Mr. Stutrud pointed out, it's certainly true that there are an awful LOT of amateurs in the beer biz these days...

 

I wasn't so much fake news as non-news.

"Fox 9 Investigates! Mice like grain! Details at 10!" (... or 11, for you in the East....)

 

I thought this thread was going to be about breweries that allow animals inside. Instead, it was about other legitimate health code violations. We have these codes for a reason, and it's good that businesses are held accountable when they don't adhere to them.

I've never gotten sick from any beer or food I've consumed at a brewery, because these code are enforced. I have had allergic reactions due to animals the brewery has allowed inside, because that part of the code isn't enforced

 

I like Stutrud but his beer at the very beginning wasn't exactly stellar until year three or four just like every other new brewery in this town. Things for his brewery changed when Summit Porter won a Gold medal at the GABF in the late 80's. Winning the medal catapulted his brewery up the ladder all accross the state, it was really fun to see him succeed. IMO, he really has to watch his tongue.

 

nah, calling everyone else a bunch of amateurs is just like telling the kids of today they'll never amount to anything. he's probably right.

i liked some of what they suggested the minnesota hygiene department took issue with, but i'm pretty sure that was cribbed from a monty python sketch. crunchy frog. cement mixers with real cement. spring surprise. brilliant stuff there.

 

Stutrud isn't thrilled with all of the new competition in the Surly Law era that eats into his market share and forces him out of his comfort zone of traditional English and German styles. Most fledgling breweries can't afford rigorous QC/QA programs, and insisting on quality control serves as an intentional and self-serving effort to create a barrier to entry by those (like Summit) that already have such programs in place. Some of the best breweries in the state struggled with quality issues out of the gate (including Sisyphus, notably, as Sam Harriman admitted on these boards). "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without" - Confucius, at least apocryphally.

That said, this has nothing to do with the very minor issues noted in the report, and Fox 9 shouldn't have conflated these matters.

 

Ummm... the ingredient they found at Excelsior was milfoil. Well, OK, what's that?

 

That was 1989 IIRC. And you and I* both belong to the "Sweet Spot" of industry people who 'just ought to know' about all of this local stuff, and know the trade inside and out.

Tom Lyden is in fact the neighbor of my boss. Small world~!

* Chaz shuts-up before he lets the cat out of the bag . . .

 

You can set up a quick and dirty QC program for relatively little money. Much less money than the decorating in most taprooms. To think otherwise is naive.

 

Unintentionally funny?

 

It was part of a "gimmick" brew using Milfoil and Zebra Mussels. Both are invasive things creeping into MN lakes. Milfoil is a plant.

 

Their description is a bit vague. They might be burning the tobacco to smoke the malt rather than putting the tobacco directly in the malt. But, I don't home brew or anything, so IDK if that even makes sense.

 

Do you have insider knowledge to back this up? Are you suggesting that the BA, which has been saying the same thing for a couple of years, is also intentionally putting up barriers to entry?

For some of these breweries, it is not a flawed diamond; it is more like a lump of coal.

 

Summit has a top notch Quality Control/Assurance program. Look up the background of Rebecca Newman and then start asking other breweries if they have a position dedicated solely to quality. Granted were talking economies of scale here but I think it speaks volumes when other breweries go to Summit for their quality lab and testing.

Anyone can say they're committed to quality but how many places point to a policy or procedure in place to back that up. Consistency = Quality, if you're a small brewery just starting out and not working towards this you will end up floundering around in the long run.

 

From what I remember from last year, it was smoked with cigar tobacco that had been soaked in Grand Marnier.