Kane Brewing (September 2017)

It's Jersey
We always take separate cars

 

Lager was a certainly a standout…Brittle, biscuity, and grainy with sweet caramel malt, hints of sugar, and refined bitterness; NZ hops incorporated competently – A nice floral/spice element: quite earthy and predominately citrusy with traces of lemons/fruit…Night Swimming is rather impressive

 

Packed but lines for Brunch and cans/growlers moved really fast. Waited in line longer to use the bathroom than I did for cans and Brunch combined. Tastings was another story. I grabbed packages and hit the road.

 

Anyone else crack a Brunch yet? Mine gushed like crazy upon opening

 

A gusher dark beer, that can't be good. Not out of the ordinary for a wild ale or bottle conditioned beere fruited beer, but in a porter? Did it taste alright.

 

Tastes great. Saw a few comments on Untappd stating the same thing as me. Makes me nervous

 

yikes... was the bottle cold? gushing brunches doesn't sound too good, especially if multiple people are reporting it

 

If this turns, does Kane have a reputation of making good with owners of bad batches?

 

Not just me reporting this. All over Facebook groups now as well, for those of you in NJLTCB

 

Wasn't fresh out of the fridge. Picked them up and then drove home and had one. Was still cool, though

 

I'm curious about all this as well. First time I've even seen or heard about something like this from Kane

 

Just my 2 cents but mine gushed as well.

 

yeah checked with a friend and his did as well... will be interesting to see if anything actually beings to taste off or if it's simply just way over carb'd

 

Any noticeable off flavors from gushers?

 

Mine gushed. Didn't think anything of it - neighbor gave it to me when he got home, went in fridge, and I opened it when fight started. Checked it in to Untappd, and someone questioned if it gushed which made me realize it wasn't just me. No off flavors, but slight over-carb.

 

I haven't yet opened any. Brought home and put in beer fridge. What is proper serving temp? If worried about gushing do I open cold then let sit until temp comes up? Or will that flatten it?

 

Michael asked me to post this to address any concerns with Mexican Brunch:

Hey guys-

We are aware of a few incidents of bottles of Mexican Brunch foaming out when opened. We obviously take any potential issue regarding quality control very seriously and we are looking into it more. I just wanted to take this opportunity to address our quality control process so you have an understanding of what the beer goes through prior to release.

We have always had an increased focus on quality control testing for all our bottled and canned beers, but over the last 6-12 months we have spent a tremendous amount of resources building out our lab equipment and personnel. Like all of our bottled and canned products, we tested Mexican Brunch in the brite tank prior to packaging, and bottles from each of the fill heads on our bottling line post-run for biological contaminants. In the case of an adjunct beer like this, we test after each new ingredient is introduced to the process to ensure the beer remains clean during the process—both by traditional lab plating and electronic testing means. Every test throughout this process came back negative for beer spoiling contaminants which is why we are confident there is no contamination issue with this beer.

The other potential issues with foaming concerns CO2 volumes (carbonation level) in the beer. Once we invested in a canning line we also bought a Gehaltemeter to measure CO2 and oxygen levels in beer. This is to ensure that our beer is being packaged at our desired carbonation level, and to measure oxygen pickup in our beer to keep it as low as possible. Mexican Brunch was tested in the bottle after packaging at around 2.4-2.45 volumes of CO2, so we are confident that, as a whole, the bottles were not overcarbonated.

The other outstanding issues that could have caused foaming in these instances are fill levels, nucleation points, and temperature. High fills with increased nucleation points from spices and higher temperature could cause foaming. This is what we are looking into now. Since we have opened bottles at the brewery without issue we don’t want to rush to judgment on what, if any, the issue is. We’d like to get a better understanding of what might have caused these reported issues before we come to any conclusions. As always, if you have any questions or issues with our bottles, or any of our beers, please contact me directly. mkane @ kanebrewing.com

Michael Kane

 

If you need to test open any more bottles, let me know. I will dispose of the contents for you. Anything to help.

Thanks for the update.

 

Sadly, I have no idea when to drink this now that it's geyser-ing leaves you with a totally under-carbonated version of the finished product. Is there a theory to avoid this via time/serving temp that anyone has done before in similar circumstances?

(On a side note, Wave Tank was/is excellent)

 

Odd, wave tank was good out of the gates however it fell off really hard for me, I've dumped the last 3 of 4 that I have cracked between end of August and earlier this week.