Not sure I'd say this was ever "common" but in the old days it definitely happened. Especially when those portable canning lines and cheap hand labeling were more of a thing. You ran into a pretty extreme example, though. Back then, just because of the styles that were popular, you'd usually get a pale ale instead of a red and such.
Never in a can, but I once got a half growler of a Jolly Pumpkin beer that I wondered about. My research at the time suggested that keg was over a year old (is that even possible?), and the overall experience made me wonder if the lines were clean. FWIW, here's the review: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/9897/242606/?ba=Premo88#review I still gave it decent scores, and as far as I know, it was the correct beer. Call it the beauty of being a wild ale ... bacteria in the lines might actually help it.
What style/brand was it? A craft beer bar near me will often serve 'vintage' kegs of beers that keep well over time (e.g., Cantillion beers, Imperial Stouts, etc.). It was a number of years ago when I visited the Jolly Pumpkin brewery and at that time they had a number of farmhouse and sour beers on tap. Those sorts of beers tend to hold well with aging and depending on one's palate they improve with aging. Cheers!
Mislabeling seems likely. Bigger mistakes have been made (see recent Celsius recall cause it was actually High Noon).
You have a craft beer bar near you that serves vintage Cantillon on draft in the regular? I think I’ve seen Cantillon on tap once ever and it was at least 10 years ago. Send me your address I’m moving there.
Not on the regular but occasionally for special events such as x year anniversary, etc. Not worth moving here for something that occurs every x number of years. Cheers!
I’d go Occom’s razor on this. Looks like the simplest explanation is that it’s the right beer, but a mouse got stuck in the canning line and bled out into your beer.
We had a bar that closed back in May, after being open less than 2 years, that did have Loons on 95+% of the time. The rarest Loons wouldn't be on the menu, you had to know to ask. Always bottles available. The owners of the bar, Great Northern Taphouse, are also the owners of garden Path Fermentation, and they used to work at Jester King, and have some great connections throughout the industry, and in the wild ale community in particular. A couple years ago, Great Northern was the only place in Washington to host a Zwanze Day event. I miss that place being just down the street from my work. Fortunately, Garden Path is about a half-hour drive south, so, I still have Loon access fairly easily.
So I heard back from the brewery. They said a few cases of the their sour was mislabeled as the IPA. They offered to send me a few 4 packs of their other beers. Great customer service!
I agree. I love when a person or company in this case just says "we messed up, let us make it right", as it should be.
I have been to several small brewers and watched the labelling. Often the beer is canned in blank cans, stored, then more or less hand labelled one by one to stock the cooler or fill and order. It would be very easy to make a mistake.
Hope the beer you get is close to fresh.,,,,the SingleCut I see is quite old. I look as a friend likes the 18 Watt and it’s almost never fresh. 8 months plus is what I seem to see. Philadelphia brewing( do they exist anymore) Victory and DFH and Fonta Flora were very good to me when I had bad beer issues. Enjoy
Ya know, the more I dwell on the OPs topic...it dawns on me that I've heard this cry before. And it's not about beer eeeeeeee what?
