Thanksgiving night, sitting around a campfire in Death Valley and cracked a BA Santa's Little Helper. It was long past sunset, the campfire was fading, and the beer was being poured into a double walled titanium mug since it was super cold outside. In other words, I didn't get a good visual on the beer at all. I took a nice sniff and it smelled just as expected. I took a nice sip and WHAM. Mouth full of snot. I got a big wad of what I can only assume was the pellicle in my glass. My appetite for the beer was completely lost and despite it smelling and tasting just fine (once I fished out the wad of snot) I couldn't drink it and it was dumped. I've never experienced this before and frankly it was really gross, despite knowing what it was. Should I give Port an email? Unfortunately the bottle was dumped with all of our camp trash and MrBLB doesn't remember where he bought it - maybe a local small shop (san jose) or BevMo. Recently, so it would be this year's batch.
Had an Eel River beer give me one of those.. luckliy I was pouring into a glass when saw the shape come forth. Had no clue what it was called. Dumped the snot and tried the beer. All was good and happy to say no ill effects .
If it smelled and tasted fine, I'd say it most likely was NOT a pellicle, but instead some coagulated proteins in the bottle. It happens. Not that it's any less unpleasant than a pellicle would be. I'd say you should definitely contact Lost Abbey, and my guess is they would gladly replace your bottle or refund your purchase.
Yep, probably coagulated proteins, as Lost Abbey has had issues with that in the past. If you contact them, they will probably give you a free t-shirt. It's too bad the BA Santa's seems to have so many QC problems. It's a great beer when it's not flat or spiked with phlegm-like proteins.
It's not an infection. A buddy had the same issue, and their response was: The gelatinous glob in Santa’s Little Helper is from the starches in the malt. The chocolate malt, oatmeal, and roasted malts have formed a starch like substance from the high levels of beta-glucans in the wort. They are not dangerous and they will not affect the flavor and that is not infection. Would you please let me know the year that is on the neck of the bottle and also if this is a bourbon aged Santa’s or just Santa’s? We have taken corrective actions in this year’s batches and want to make sure it isn’t still occurring. I am sure that was quite disturbing and glad to hear that you still enjoyed it. If you will respond to this email with your address and shirt size we would like to ship you a Good Faith Basket to make it up to you. We appreciate your feedback and patronage and want to hear from you whenever you have a positive or negative experience so keep it coming! Cheers, Gwen
Thanks guys, I'll send them a note. I'm not sure how helpful I'll be since we no longer have the bottle, but I do know it was purchased within the past month in the San Jose market.
Had this once with a bottle of Serpent's Stout. Probably a tbsp size wad of brown snot blurped into the glass. Tasted fine after removing it.
Same problem in mine, but my friend and I weren't as brave as you. I poured out the rest and BevMo exchanged it...for something else.
I've actually had this with that particular beer. Its nothing grosser than yeast or proteins that are in many beers. Don't pour the bottles so vigorously or fish it out. You would have known if it was a bacterial pellicle. A bacterial infection significant enough to produce a pellicle would have changed the flavor of the beer significantly.
I disagree and think cquiroga was on the mark. Port has had issues with this before, or maybe it's even an old bottle when they were going through this problem.
