side project origin

There were 186 bottles, so it's going to take a big offer. I know of several that have been traded. One landed a BA Abraxas, BA 17, BA sump, and 2 yrs of regular dark lord. Another landed 2 Fou Foune, 50n40e, and BCBVS. Get ready to bring out the walez if you wanna land this one!

 

Yeah and now they might be infected. At least that is what the last few reviews are saying. I was on the fence of trading for one. But now I would never give up that much for a possibly infected beer.

 

I was looking for one as well and throwing some nice stuff up for it, but a guy I know just opened one recently which turned out to be an infected drainpour. Check out the recent reviews/hads, I would hold off at this point.

 

thats insane. I traded one for as part of a package that included a rare, 2 vanillas, and a bramble (origin, grey monday, and saison du fermier), and another for a geneology of morals (bourbon) and a cthulhu

 

My GF opened hers at a local taproom the day before thanksgiving and hers was definately not infected. That or none of the folks who had a pour, including myself, have any idea what an infected beer is like. I have been contemplating putting mine up for trade but have no idea what to ask for considering that there is a chance of infection.

 

Let's get the facts straight folks and quit spreading rumors.

Here are the facts, as posted by Cory King on STLHops:



So…

I want to first start by saying,

THE ORIGIN IS NOT INFECTED.

Most of you know me personally and know that I am usually pretty quick to post on here to clear up any confusion, answer any questions, or to stop any rumors before they grow out of control. With that said you might wonder why it has taken me a while to respond to this post…

At Side Project, I try to make sure that I am brewing the best beers that I possibly can. Not only that, I love to age the beers as long as they need, release them when they are ready to drink and to make sure that I am 100% proud and approve of what I am selling to you. A lot of you have spent many hours and your hard earned money acquiring Side Project beers, and I cannot thank you enough for your support and in return I want to always supply you with the info that you want and the quality that you expect.

The first person to send me a message about The Origin did so about a month ago, asking if it was possible that The Origin was infected. I replied that anything is possible, as it is, and that I would work to make them happy because I hadn’t any hard proof whether it was or was not. I just assumed that this was an isolated incident and moved on. Until someone on BA reviewed it as infected. (actually several people gave it low ratings, but they were all on the same day, from the same state, so I assumed the same tasting group and the power of suggestion had taken over all of their palates). This though did affect me and my heart sank. Just ask Karen, I was really worried and concerned that I had misrepresented Side Project and released something that was not of the high standards that I hold myself. Even though I don’t have a lab, I trust my palate and knew that that beer coming from the barrel was 100% and ready to sell. I thought that something had happened during bottle conditioning, so I immediately started trying to figure out how to address this.

I started looking into labs and reached out to some friends at Schlafly to see if they could lend a hand. I want to thank Schlafly for offering their services to me, I cannot thank them enough for the news that they gave me today . I never believed that it was infected, but I needed the proof to be content.

The Origin is not infected.

Even though its not infected, it sucks that all it takes is one person to post it online and now people are questioning it. I can defend myself and my beers on here, but I cannot reply to people reviewing The Origin as infected, and all it takes is one palate to prematurely cry infection to cause a whole stir among the beer community of the other forums. The damage is done and I cannot fix that… I just wanted to let you know that I wanted to wait until I knew based on hard facts whether or not anything was going on in the beer before I replied to concerns addressed here and I hope that you understand.

So, what is going on? The Origin does taste different now then the draft version during the release. The bottle also taste different than the bottle I opened the day before the release. The Origin is a blend of 3 beers that are now over 2 years old. All of my beers are unfiltered, unpasteurized and bottle conditioned. They are living and will change with age. I released the beer ready to drink fresh and it is your choice to hold it, age it and let it change if you wish. How will it age? I have no idea. What should it taste like now? I have no idea. Am I still happy with it? ABSOLUTELY. I had expected the blend to taste more like it does now then what it tasted like during the release, but either way, I love both how it tasted then and how it tastes now. I stressed the fact that this was a blended beer by adding the neck tag to every bottle, but I unfortunately believe that because the label says “imperial stout” that too many people are having a preconceived notion of what they want it to taste like before they taste it, and thus the age and flavors are confusing some. Being that there are only 186 bottles, all from one barrel, all bottled within a few hours of each, all through 1 beer line and 1 beer gun, the likelihood of an isolated “infected” bottle is zero to none. This beer, as well as most of my beers, will need to be consumed with an open mind, an openness to styles and more of an approach of “do I like this, the balance and the complexities” as opposed to “does this fit a certain style”

Sorry for the very long response, but I didn’t want to stop until I felt like I had adequately defended not only the integrity of Side Project, but also mine as a brewer and business owner…

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at any time at my email: [email protected]. Thank you everyone for the support that you have shown me and I hope that you have loved my beers as much as I have loved brewing and sharing them.

THE ORIGIN IS NOT INFECTED...

Cheers.

 

Cory is the man! I think way to many people are using the term "infected" a little loosely these days

 

While informative that doesn't mean much its a guy defending his beer. I applaud his research and testing.

I had a horribly infected BVDL 13' a couple months ago. It was a drainpour. Its the only one I have heard of being infected. The 8 other people at the tasting drained their pour as well. What could possibly be the reasoning for one bad bottle? Dirty bottle at bottling? Thats the only thing I could think of . Either way I was so traumatized that I traded my other bottle away. I know that was probably a stupid thing to do but I dont like trading my cellar away for a potentially bad bottle. While no other reports of infected BVDL have been reported I will not trade for one again in the very slight possiblity that there is another " bad" bottle out there. While the chances are very slim its just something in my head that has me worried. If one bottle could be infected randomly so can another one.

The same goes for The Origin. The price is high and I'm just not sure its worth the risk.

 

So I assume you didn't make some guy trade his cellar to you for what you viewed as a possibly infected bottle.......

 

Beer trauma drama...

 

I'll assume that someone who has rated 3000 beers isn't easily influenced by the power of suggestion. Or perhaps they didn't read the neck tag? Probably not the first brewery to blend beers, probably not the first time people have tasted them either. So a beer got reviewed poorly because they had a bad bottle, no need to question the palettes of consumers. It was just a bad bottle.

 

What you describe (potentially lone bad bottle) is a potential issue for ANY beer. Using your logic, you should quit drinking beer.

 

I will take all the BVDL!

 

I'm confused as to why someone would review a beer if they thought the bottle they consumed was infected. It seems like more and more people are experiencing "traders remorse" or "first time drinking this style" ITUS

"No idea how it's supposed to taste or how good it actually might have been." But nevertheless, you traded for it and reviewed it? Okay...

"This is drinkable for an infected beer, but it's infected nonetheless." What in the world is anyone suppose to take away from this review/statement?

 

The review is there to inform others on what to possibly expect when drinking a beer. As most reviews are personal opinions on what was being consumed I guess you would take away that they had a bad bottle and were hoping it would be better. If it so happens that the bottle they had was not infected, they just didn't enjoy it. People will then form their own opinions on the beer when they drink and review it.

 

I guess the bottle that the Alström brothers reviewed wasn't infected.
http://www.stltoday.com/entertainme...cle_2fed1b88-ae26-5577-bf8f-026d300bd049.html

 

Wow what a standup guy you are! You ripped someone off by tricking them into taking a drain pour. Class act.

 

My tasting group opened a bottle of Origin among a mini-whale tasting night (Batch 1 Persica, DDG, Great, Rare, blah blah) last week and it was the star of the night. Outside of the lack of head, it runs circles around Bourbon Vanilla DL (in our opinion) -- not a glimmer of infection -- and we are a TOUGH bunch of beer reviewers. I think where folks (Cory) are frustrated here is that a tasting group of 4+ people sabotage the rating on a beer by casting terrible reviews / ratings calling it infected when it clearly wasn't (or they / trading partner stored it poorly / group-thinked it). I think the crew that lampooned the beer should speak up or pull their reviews as it's giving Side Project an undeserved bad rap for an absolutely staggeringly amazing beer.

Aside: met Cory at What the Funk and had his Saison there...between Side Project, Rare Barrel and J. Wakefield...there are no better emerging breweries in the country than these guys. Wow. Big brew houses beware.