Refunds for 2015 Regular BCBS and 2015 Prop

So what happens if those bottles end up being ok?

 

Then he is lucky. Goose Island already allowed people to claim refunds on bottles of BW and Coffee that weren't opened knowing they were bad. They've said those bottles are bad, or are highly likely to be bad. There is no moral ambiguity in this situation IMO.

 

Some people just don't think things through very well. I participated sparsely in this thread, but as it became apparent that some bottles truly were infected (which didn't really take that long....for me anyway), I figured it was just a matter of time before Goose Island acknowledged it. From a customer service perspective, as more and more were reporting bad beers, they pretty much had to. I think the delay was just that they needed to time to figure out the nature and extent of the infection.

For that reason, I did not rush to drink mine (I drank one for an occasion when I would have anyway) and saved that bottle. I did not know how they handled the earlier infection refunds, so I assumed bottle labels or pics would be a natural method for PoP. The idea that they'd offer wide open refunds with no PoP was unthinkable to me.

Shrug....it all seemed pretty obvious to me. The only issue I have with how they've handled this is how they handled the initial reports (if the posts here are true). The proper response would be something like "Thank you for calling. We log these reports to track trends. So far we haven't had any/(many) reports, so there's nothing to indicate a widespread issue. Nevertheless, we will investigate this further. Let me get your contact info so that we can keep you informed if we see a growing trend. Thank you for informing us of your experience." Then I'd probably send a trinket of some sort as a small token to appease them while I investigated.

I don't blame them for being dubious initially, but you still need to treat the customer with respect. Obviously, issuing a product-wide refund due to a handful of initial reports probably doesn't make sense. As the reports spread geographically and also in frequency, they investigate further. Still, it took considerable time for them to formally verify the issue. When they did, they responded appropriately and are, IMO, handling it about as well as they can at this point.

 

Let's be clear: MANY people received checks for their bad bottles of Coffee and Barleywine, as part of the refunds for those bottles. That process ended at the end of February.
But it seems like you are asking if people have received checks from this refund process for Regular and Prop that was announced just a few days ago.
In any case, (and I'm trying not to sound like a total tool saying this) maybe you should research the topic at hand or read through some posts before posting a question that has been answered numerous times.

**apologies to any offended by this - I'm sincerely trying to help

 

Yes that's true. As I said it seems to be that the only thing preventing you from doing that is your own conscience.

However, as @croush points out to many with the same exact information (e.g., the same time stamp) is not credible) and if they check photos to that level opf detail...

 

Hmmm all mine were 9.99, and I saw some for 10.99, and I heard of 11.99 but that was the highest.

 

umm. isn't the time-stamp by the minute or no? if so, you can imagine they didn't run 1 bottle per minute to create individualized time stamps or they'd still be running/filling bottles as we speak. IOW the time stamp is going to be replicated throughout multiple cases worth of beer before flipping to the next minute to be replicated on the next (X) amount of cases worth of beer.

 

High end bottling lines run at a speed that can put through some multiple number of bottles within a minute. That would mean a limited (but unknown) number of bottles per minute. I'd expect there to be no more than 2-3 cases in which the same minute shows on the bottles and even then not a full case.

 

I have no idea but I'm thinking it's much faster than you'd think. I posted this before but back when the BW infection was announced, I looked at my bottles and all of them had the exact same time/date stamp. My bottles were bought in two different stores, in two different cities about 30 miles apart. Finding it hard to believe that will all the stores selling it in the metro area, that those cases were sitting next to each other on the same truck. But I guess anything is possible.

 

no position to argue exact numbers/minute. many report having the same exact time stamp across all or many/multiple bottles. how many bottles are run per minute etc i don't know but the idea that there isn't going to be duplicate time stamped labels, is DOA. unless i am misreading(?) it sounded like you suggested having the same time stamps would be considered : "not credible".

 

I'm perfectly willing to believe that I was underguessing the rate at which multiple bottles could be filled within the same 1 min time frame.

But given what I've seen of the way distribution works I can easily believe that those bottles you bought from two different stores were within that one min time frame. At the brewery, the filled bottles go into a case that is loaded on a pallet, then the next case is put on the same pallet and so on. So it's quite possible that all the same time stamp wound up on one pallet and then got shrink wrapped for shipment to a particular distributor. That distributor then un packed the pallet them to assemble deliveries (probably with other cases of other beers as well) for the stores getting them. So if we suppose there are 5 all having the same time stamp (which the distributors don't pay any attention to when sorting cases) then, say, 2 of them could wind up being added to the order for one store and 3 in the order for another. Around here not all retail outlets get allocated cases of BCBS so even with a single delivery truck in use for a single day, there can be lots of cases delivered to different retailers. So, yeah, some cases could wind up in one retail shop and some in the other, just waiting for you to stop in and buy (also, at that time, paying no attention to the date stamp ).

To complicate matters further, add in the possibility that there's more than one bottling line in use. There could be bottles with the same time stamp in two different regions of the country since both bottling lines could well be feeding one pallet each rather than the same pallet.

 

I don't think I was saying there wouldn't be duplicate time stamps or that it would not be credible that there were. What I was suggesting was that IF they (GI) were keeping track of time stamps, and IF the person who was wondering if it would be possible to use one bottle for multiple photographs to collect multiple refunds, and THEN exeeded what had already been recorded as the number of bottles sold with that time stamp.... (We don't know how many bottles had the same time stamp, but they, GI,will know how many bottles there were with the same time stamp.)

In fact if you go back to my original response to his query I didn't even raise the issue of time stamps at all, since I doubt that Gi are keeping track at that level of detail, which is why I simply suggested in that post that the only thing preventing someone from using multiple pictures of the same bottle to get refunds for good bottles as well was their conscience.

Edit: Although it now occurs to me that with a scanner and optical character recognition and the right bit of record keeping/analysis software it actually would not take a huge amount of time or effort to log how many refund requests have been filed using the same time stamp. Then when the sorting program exceeds a set number the alarm goes off and alerts a human to the fact that somebody is doing something that shouldn't be happening. However, given the nature and type of errors that appeared in processing the earlier refunds for the variants I'm suspecting there were and still may be more people than computers spending time on accounting, etc.

 

This conversation is getting pretty esoteric does the time represent bottling time or labeling time? My guess is the labeling is speedier and you might see a lot of bottles with the same time.

 

FWIW, my entire case is the same exact date/time stamp. I saw someone post of FB the same question, and GI said it was fine as long as they had pictures and separate labels for each.

 

Yeah that helps. Thanks!

Edit: This whole exercise is sort of like assembling a jig saw puzzle with no picture to look at.

 

Most breweries that use that level of detail refer to it as "bottling time."

The way most automated packaging systems work, if the line turns out, say 200 bottles per min., the label machine(s) are only going to work as fast as the bottles come to them but that's going to be pretty quick. Running at full speed the time lag between bottling and labeling is typically very short and usually a known amount of time. So any time difference between sealing and labeling could be pretty much ignored or easily programmed into the system so it uses the correct times on the label. So assuming a high end bottling line at GI that time difference between sealing and labeling would be a difference which makes no difference.

 

The bottle of Rare I was able to try about a month ago was "21SEP15 0827," and it was spectacular. So was the Regal, but that bottle is long gone so no idea on a date there. Would it be weird if I said that Rare has a fine smelling box?

 

Curious,

Are you asking for refunds on good beer?

 

If they end up with infection again this year then it would be because they didn't pasteurize. Not happening, no way the mothership would allow GI to make that kind of bonehead move.

 

Not for any regulars that I have drank of course and yes I saved the bottles when I heard rumors and reports of regulars being infected.
I am sending in refunds on the remaining unopen bottles I have that have a possibility to still be good short term but get worse over time as I have read many people post about. Same batch and dates that were good several months ago that are now undrinkable. We actually had 2 bottles from the same date at the office one day and one guy's was stored in a basement and the other was in a fridge both since nov/dec, the basement one was noticeable off while the fridge one was proper and delicious.