Bad beer & your rights as the consumer. Let's talk.

I tried to explain to a brewery that gave me back to back infected, diacetyl bombs that they should give me a refund and that their beers were terrible and poorly crafted. They didn't give me a refund. I think they subscribed to the "It's just beer, get over it" notion.

 

If you buy a beer that is truly infected (I'll leave out the discussion of whether "it's infected" has become an easy way for people to disagree with ratings without feeling like an idiot), most breweries will gladly send you a new bottle if it is within their means. Simply contact them and politely describe how your bottle tasted - detailed feedback is welcome by true practitioners of any craft.

If they do not and this is something you feel is important, don't purchase their beer anymore.

Beer is a living product. It's defect rate is likely higher than lots of other consumer products (just a guess). Support breweries that are making good product, even if you receive a defect every once in a while. Don't support breweries that are actually negligent, though I think this is pretty damn rare. I can't imagine that a single brewery who's beer has earned a top 100 rank is guilty of this. They are likely just trying their best to learn and perfect their craft.

 

Just work it out with the brewery. If you can't resolve the issue then take the loss and stop doing business with them.

 

Ive only had two problems that I've reached out to a brewery about.

1. I bought a great divide Titan that was ridiculously out of date, and it tasted awful. I emailed them saying where I bought it and didn't so much as get a reply. Not that I was expecting any restitution, I was afterall the moron that didnt bother checking the date on the bottle, but at least a confirmation that they got the message would be nice.

2. Got some bum nisperos de batata from pipeworks. Messaged them on FB and they told me to stop by and get something else. I told them to surprise me and one of the founders personally handed me a Raspberry Truffle Abduction. The original batch. Love those guys, hope they never change.

 

$=vote, welcome to capitalism

 

This right here is your answer, so do your part by no longer buying and then go about your business.
Initially, if the beer simply didn't live up to your expectations then you have nobody to blame but yourself. Actual bad beer is a different story. See above.
Also, you have no "rights" as a consumer. You may have expectations of fair treatment and quality products, but rights? Wrong.

 

Is it me, or has anybody else noticed that Shiner doesn't put a best by date on their products? Maybe it is there somewhere and I can't find it. Any thoughts?

 

If it is really a bad beer then it should be replaced or refunded. If you just don't happen to like a hyped beer...tough shit.

 

Expectations and a beers rating are not relavent to the issue, I think even mentioning this aspect sets a bad tone for the conversation.

If you have a bad beer you should contact the brewery. Provide a detailed account of the problem, this will help them help you. Contacting the brewery is a mutually beneficial action. If the brewery offers you compensation for the product, great! I would not expect or demand such action however.

 

If you have defective merchandise, of course you should seek a refund and give the brewer a chance to make it right. I'm not at all convinced that's what we have in this case, though. There's lots of beer in the world that is not defective, but just doesn't meet my standards or is otherwise not to my liking. And if you paid for hype then you got what you paid for.

 

So, I recently purchesed a 6 pack of abita turbo dog. I know its nothing special but the best by date was 4 months ago. I called them just to let them know that some of there old beer was being sold past it best by date. They apologized and sent me 2 fresh 6 packs of turbo dog the next week. That was definitely cool. Its nice to see there are places that still give a damn about the people who drink their beer

 

I tried to pick up some Rauchbier last week, Jack's Abby's Fire in the Ham. The guy at my local shop said he wasn't getting any this year because he explicitly declined to order it. Apparently last year he got a lot of complaints and people came to the store to return it and seek refunds. It's too bad that people can think that such a lovely, well crafted interpretation of a classic style is defective and cause financial harm to well meaning craftspeople who have done nothing wrong.

 

The tricky part is whether there genuinely is a defect in the beer vs. the beer just having some flavors not to a beer drinker’s liking.

If the beer genuinely has a defect than you should contact the brewery and thoroughly detail what the issue(s) is. It is reasonable to expect compensation here but it is up to the brewery in that regard.

It is a shame what has happened to geocool and Jack's Abby's Fire in the Ham. A Rauchbier will have a strong smoky taste; it is not a beer for everybody. I am sure that the beer store owner had an earful of “this beer is bad” type comments. I can understand why the beer store owner made the decision that he did but that unfortunately means that beer drinkers like geocool are ‘left out in the cold’.

Cheers!

 

Rauchbiers taste smokey? I am kidding.

That reminds me of seeing this 10 years or more go, before sours became popular. Under the Cantillon bottles, hanging from the shelf was a card that said "Cantillon is supposed to taste SOUR". Yes Cantillon would set on the self back then.

 

The one and only time I felt the need to contact a brewer about beer that didn't seem right was when I got a case of HopFish from Flying Fish and a handful of the bottles seemed more like their Belgian, Grand Cru, than their IPA (maltier, notable presence of spice characteristics not normally found in HopFish, etc). I sent them an email and Gene Muller, the founder and GM responded immediately. He offered to replace the beer, but more importantly, he kept me in the loop as they went to great lengths to try to diagnose what had happened, including checking all their production logs, and lab tests and the report from their "tasting panel" who tests samples from two "lab cases" they keep from every run (not a bad gig, if you can get it). In the end, they never did figure out what happened for sure, but he shared their leading suspicions. I was thoroughly impressed with how professionally they dealt with my complaint and I've held them (if not always all of their beers) in very high esteem ever since.

 

My dad bought me some Tallgrass Oasis from a grocery store in MO just last month. I looked at the can and the Enjoy By date was 04/07/13. When I drank this from a snifter (just before I knew the best buy date) I thought it smelled odd - like Sunkist Orange soda. I thought about contacting the brewery but then I thought....it's just beer. My dad bought a ton of other great beer for me so why bother? Maybe I should have, not sure...

I almost started a thread on BA at that time to ask for input if I should contact the brewery or not...even if the fault belongs to the grocery store (or perhaps the distributor). But than I thought I'm being a little silly and told myself to forget about it.

Unless it's a whale...thats a different story.

 

What if you buy and infected beer, the brewery responds and says they will make it right.
Should the consumer still act like a D-Bag?

 

I recently saw a shelf disclaimer next to Quelque Chose.