Praecocia Infected?

here we go...

 

Part me of can't help but wonder if all the recent hubbub is psychological. (Speaking as someone who had a bottle of 2013 White Chocolate and thought it was fine.) That, the Cacaonut thread, and now this?

 

If I remember right, it had a bit of tartness when I had it on tap. I'm guessing it's just from the apricots.

 

Certainly tasted off to me.

 

I had a small sample of Praecocia on tap a couple weeks ago, and it was sour. I was drinking a glass of Oude Tart with Sour Cherries at the time. The Oude Tart was way better.

 

I figured it was supposed to taste that way? Didn't buy any and I didn't like it at all, but just figured that was the intended flavor.

 

The Bruery would be well advised to keep the beer descriptions off their label and simply list the style. Too many people read the description on the bottle and develop an expectation that their tasting experience fails to live up to when they drink the beer. Then, because the Bruery has been exceptional in their customer service, there is an expectation from many in the community that refunds or credits will be issued because a description and the (often misleading) expectation it creates doesn't match up with a person's tasting experience.

White Chocolate may have created an awful precedent, where a perfectly fine beer, which is certifiably not infected but fails to live up to one's expectations, can be trashed with the expectation of cost recovery. Hopefully Patrick does his usual follow-up testing on these bottles, and if/when it is verified that there is no infection, he can kindly tell people to try a beer before buying it, or to simply realize that one's taste buds are not always going to live up to whatever impression they formed from a short description on a bottle label, or from their (undependable) memory of how a previous batch tasted, etc.

 

Well said!!!!
Although to me it sounded like the op was just trying to get others opinions on the beer. But I agree with ghetto

 

In theory that's great but when the RS/HS is forced to buy the beers before they are released, we have to make those purchases based on trust in The Bruery's quality, past history and descriptions. When that trust starts to erode it makes it very difficult to know if we should make a leap of faith or not; especially when that leap can be a several hundred dollar spend. And with that could see the collapse of the RS/HS (Lost Abbey Patron Sinners and Saints clubs anyone?).

 

You're not forced to buy anything; you make the decision to buy the beers that are not included in your membership allocations.

 

Yeah, but in most cases we're forced to buy them before they're released if we want them. Which renders GhettoFabulous' point moot. And still does nothing to refute any concerns over trust in the brand.

 

No one is forcing anyone to buy anything. And just because you paid to become part of a club doesn't mean that purchasing their beer is any different than purchasing beer from any bottle shop. Try buying six bottles at your local shop and bringing back five of them saying you didn't think it tasted like the description on the bottle.

And the bruery typically makes their beer available for tasting before the purchasing window closes. Even if you live too far away to sample the beer before buying it, their bottles often remain up for sale so you can purchase additional bottles after trying the first one they ship to you if you wish to be that careful. And besides, their willingness to ship is a huge luxury in the first place so complaining that you can't try the beer before buying it to verify whether your idiosyncratic taste buds agree with the description on the label represents a neediness that can never be met.

If you choose to spend hundreds of dollars on something without trying it first, no one is making you roll the dice. And any time there has been a legitimate quality control issue the Bruery has made good on it. They've even made good on some illegitimate concerns in the case of White Chocolate. And the thanks they get appears to involve frequent bickering about the mismatch between taste buds and label descriptions.

You're right, though, you can cancel your membership if this mismatch continues, but there appear to be plenty of buyers willing to purchase their beer without expressing outrage over their perceived accuracy of the label description.

 

you've got to be joking. white chocolate is chock-full of acetaldehyde. it tastes like moldy rotting apples were chucked into a vanilla bean. illegitimate concerns?

the entire reason the bruery's reserve and hoarders' societies are so strong is the bruery's commitment to quality. the bruery makes fantastic (and expensive) beer. people are willing to pay $300 or $700 to have the privilege to purchase more $30 bottles of beer, with the expectation that the beer is great. much of this is reflected in the flagships such as the anniversary beers, black tuesday, and chocolate rain, but is true for every bottle. to be invited to the hoarders' society this year, nearly every allocation must have been maxed out, many of these being brand new beers that purchasers took a leap of faith on. that leap of faith is insured and cushioned somewhat by not only the bruery's reputation for making beer that society members generally like, but by how they've acted in the rare case something went wrong. ebony and oak and white chocolate were both horrendous beers that did not taste how they were intended due to off-flavors or infection. the bruery chose to make it right to its customers, and that's why i'm a big bruery cheerleader. it's not giving in to whiny forum posters. it's doing the right thing.

 

Are you saying that when the Bruery did extensive testing on WC they did not look for excessive/growing levels of acetaldehyde? Or that what they consider an acceptable level is different than what you consider an acceptable level?

In any case, they are still selling the bottles of WC in question, so if WC is so "chock-full" of nastiness, how do you square this with what you describe as their "commitment to quality"?

Ebony & Oak was entirely different because that beer was actually infected and they automatically refunded all of those bottles because they were quantifiably not up to QC standards. WC on the other hand, has a taste that some perceive to be as different than the label description or the taste of the original vintage. The former is a subjective perception, and the latter is a common phenomenon with beer vintages.

 

you are right in that it is difficult to square this with a commitment to quality. my only idea is that it must be a face-saving maneuver to avoid two reports of infection/off-flavors in such a quick time. that being said, the problem was acknowledged implicitly by the refund, as i find it unlikely that if i emailed them today and said i thought this year's chocolate rain was gross, or that i didn't like sour in the rye with kumquats, i'd get a refund on all my bottles, including the one i opened. this wasn't just some people differing over how much apricot should be in an apricot old ale. this was people purchasing a "summar barley-wine style ale" that "comes out rich in coconut, honey, caramel and vanilla" that they added "cacao nibs and fresh vanilla beans to give this beer the delicate flavor of white chocolate" and getting something that tasted like rotting green apples.

 

If you live by the Bruery, go taste it before you buy it. If not, then don't spend the $ there. The bottom line is that it's a CHOICE to buy it. Nobody is forcing anything here, so don't say you're forced to buy it because it's absolutely not true. I live in NY and joined the RS knowing I can't try it before I buy it - and I'm fine with that. If I buy something that I don't like or the taste is off of what the description is, you won't see me bitching and complaining here because it's my CHOICE to join and not be able to sample before I pay for a bottle. For crying out loud, if this is the worst of your problems, how about donating some of that $$ to help feed our nations hungry and homeless. First world problems...

 

No offense to the OP, I'm assuming you and your friend had pours from the same bottle? But one of you got apricots and nothing else, but the other got bourbon and no apricots? Not sure if its infected or not but you just proved that the same beer can taste completely different between two different palates.

I'm going with a combination of not being what's expected, and psychological anticipation of bad bruery beers. Especially if it doesn't taste as expected.

Anyone else open a bottle and it differ significantly from the tap, or obvious infection?