BCBS is Good

if you two can look through your ego just for a moment to the economic drive behind the acquisition of goose island that would help. The businessmen at inbev, not brewers by the way, are trained to look for fads and trends that may be profitable for investment. Craft beer in general is the fad or trend I was alluding to, barrel aging just happened to come along with it because it is Goose island.
Second, asking where the art comes into play with brewing proves to me either you know nothing about the brewing process, or don't care about the work that goes into beer.

 

It was like halfway towards being straight-up sour like, say, Bruery's Tart of Darkness, and it definitely didn't seem intentional. For the record, I've had year and two-year aged BCBS bottles before and they've never developed that kind of strange tart/funky flavor. It definitely wasn't bad but I could tell, knowing how BCBS typically tastes with a year on it, that something was bizarre. Then I remembered the reports of infections and pretty much just put two and two together. Shrug.

 

If GI was truthful about the source of the infection being a tanker truck taking the beer from the aging facility to the bottling facility, it is likely the barrels would be clean.

 

that'd be classic infection setting in

 

GI already said that they are going to be more careful picking out barrels.

 

They're not doing that this year, BCBW is all aged in second use bourbon barrels just like the regular BCBS. I'm looking forward to trying it.

 

i run into a logical problem with this originating source explanation & being truthful. if GI is truthful then let's assume they do NOT employ & deal with a network of dishonest, misinformed personnel. if we assume that's correct, we should also assume early on it was truthful when their network was out across country excusing the extremely limited supply of coffee by explaining a very sizeable amount had been discarded. in providing that excuse they told us there was a sizable barrel issue to begin with.

we later deduced coffee was the first variant they bottled. if they want to run with that first variant fudged up a tanker truck & subsequent transfers, that could be. but the idea that it didn't all begin with their barrel supply just doesn't work for me.

 

There is definitely less . . . a lot less. I can't get into the reasoning, but I do know that the overall output is 30 - 50% less than last year. I work for a distributor and our allocation is a little less than half of what we got last year, even though we sold more Goose Island this year. Many wholesalers that typically get an allocation will not receive any at all.

I haven't tasted it yet, but it landed about three weeks ago.

 

Where did you get this info? Never heard of anyone aging a BA stout in hopes that it developes a tart flavor/'tang'.

 

I'm still trying to sort out one or two things.

If the organism that caused the problem for the bottles was both hard to culture, requiring more time and work than is usual, and not previously thought to cause problems for beer, why would the contents of those discarded coffee barrels have been found/judged to be infected and dumped in the first place? Most places I'm aware of with a barrel aging program in place test and dump contaminated barrel contents before any liquids get blended and/or shipped/piped/or transported anywhere other than perhaps the barrel being rolled to the nearest drain.

 

Goose Island in general gets way too much crap. The BCBS line up is fantastic and so are most of the rotating taps. Feels like every week I walk over they have at least two to three new beers to try, varying from all different styles. Just finished a growler of the pumpkin this last weekend. I know, opinions and all that and I respect others but even with a whole bunch of last years I bought being infected, I'm still going to pick up this years.

 

This is correct.

This is incorrect.

Also, as an aside, the list of this year's BCBS, from best to 'least' best, IMO:

1. BCBS Coffee
2. BCBS BW
3. BCBS
.
.
.
.
.
.
10. Prop

 

wasn't it you that said (paraphrase): GI knows enough by taste to sample & determine off barrels to discard? at the point they tasted/tested them, those barrels already tasted off (enough time and work had occurred then) so they discarded them. the barrels that made it through passed the taste test before the discard. you already pointed out the contaminant was thought to be harmless anyway. so even if the discarded barrels spooked them into lab testing all of the remaining coffee barrels, there was no precedent for discarding them based solely on a return result showing a thought to be harmless component. right?

since they passed muster, the barrels that remained after the large discard, then went through the system. some or perhaps all of them just needed more "time" & whatever "work" = in order for the harmless component to transform into the spoiling contaminant.

 

Naw, that isn't an argument I remember making or proposing, nor do I think I'd even defend it seriously. From the beginning of discussions of this situation I've understood that GI actually did some on-site lab style testing as well as any taste testing but can not independently confirm that lab style testing was part of the screening process for every barrel, nor can I confirm that it was not. In addition I've argued with more than one person that the only reliable mechanism to confirm that there is in fact an "infection," rather than an off flavor caused by something else, is through culturing it in lab testing and I've even been assured by more than one that lab testing is not necessary to confirm an "infection."

But you raise a point worth looking into further, if possible, that is whether GI did or did not in fact rely only on taste or whether they also took a sample from the liquid in all barrels for in-house lab culture. Such culturing would be realtively quick and designed for testing for the presence of the organisms already known to cause "infections." So it would probably not bother with the presence of organisms not believed to be a problem.

Yes, even if the causal organism had been detected, there would be no precedent for discarding barrels based on the presence of an organism thought to be harmless whether detected by flavor or by in-house lab testing. So, as I said, the in-house lab testing probably wouldn't be set up to even flag the presence of "harmless" organism. That was in fact part of my point about the problem with the microorganism being only found to be the problem for the bottles when it only showed up days, weeks and even months after bottle.

So indeed one fundamental question is involved with the technical details of the screening process. The practice at any other brewery, e.g., in-house lab testing, does not guarantee that practice was being followed at GI so I don't think we really know.

So returning to what puzzles me, if some barrels were discarded before bottling, as is not an unheard of situation with barrel aging programs who have not had the same problem as GI, how does that constitute prior warning, except with hindsight, that there is in fact a problem when in fact the causative organism was either not detected or if detected was generally thought not to be a problem for beer?

 

you do understand my post you quoted was a response to Sponan's quote? his post stated: if GI was truthful, the source of the problem was a tanker truck & barrels should be ''clean''. i offered why i believe the original source may have preceded the tanks & why i wouldn't assume the barrels are ''clean''.

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sorry but i didn't go look for the exact post i was speaking of by memory but it seems like your last post above (#54 of this thread) reiterates exactly that + goes on to imply it's common practice to dump off tasting barrels by many brewers not just GI.

your question was:

my response was the barrels were discarded because they tasted off at the time. the barrels that didn't get tossed didn't taste off (at that time).

please explain the kegs of barleywine that were off / infected? some of which GI later (purposely) sold in their pub under the moniker: "Playing with Fire".

 

Yes I'm aware you were responding to an earlier post.

Even if I ever held it, I have long ago given up on the assumption that all testing for harmful organisms is done by taste alone, especially since it seems that there are at least a few off flavors that initially might also be at least some symptoms caused by a different underlying problem.

My background assumption in post 54 is that standard testing at breweries large enough to have an in-house lab as part of quality control is both human tasting and lab cultures since some problem will show in a culture dish that aren't yet noticeable by taste alone. This impression is based on both tours of some breweries with such labs, having chatted at length with at least one brewery lab techician about what he did and why, and on videos released by breweries of their labs and standard operating procedures in those labs. These experiences have left me with the impression that both taste testing and lab work are routinely done in such breweries since a symptom that shows up by taste alone can reflect the presence of A or it might reflect the presence of B, but taste alone is not able to tell tell us which underlying problem is the cause of the symptom. This is also part of the reason I don't think I've argued in the past that taste alone is sufficient, particularly in a case where it is already known in advance that B might happen, as it has in the past barrel aging progams. Unwanted organisms are a built in hazard of doing them and GI knew this as a result of prior experience.

Explain the presence of those kegs of barleywine deliberately sold in the pub? There seem to be at least two possibilities:

A. One or more barrels were deliberately innoculated with an organism for purposes of testing out the resulting flavor combinations and then test marketed at the pub. I know of more than one brewer who argues that having a pub-brewery combination is a great way to do test marketing of new recipes while tuning them in and before committing to full scale production.

B. The barrel(s) from which the kegs were filled had been identified in advance as contaminated and actually had a flavor profile that might be enjoyed by fans of wild ales. If popular the wild ale could be recreated in the future through inoculation and sold/marketed as a new American Wild Ale based on a Barlywine. After all, the major differences between an infection and an inoculation are basically whether it happens unintentionally or intentionally under human control. This alsonseems part of the differences between spontaneous fermentation and pitching yeast in a brewery.

So I still get back to the point raise by your comments and the basic question Intended to be posing earlier. Exactly what type of screening testing was actually done by GI to identify the bad coffee barrels, I.e., was it done by taste alone or not? I don't think we know.

If the bad barrels were identified by taste and lab, or by lab alone how would the presence of some problem from a different organism in one barrel serve as a clear warning there is a more wide spread problem that only shows itself after bottling and shipping and is caused by a different organism previously thought by the industry to be harmless. For example, I once found an "antique" machine built in about the forties for use in shoe stores to give people an X-Ray view of what their foot and bones looked like in a particular shoe when they stood on the device. The manufacturer was clearly unaware of the dangers of such radiation revealed in later years by more extensive testing and experience with X-Ray machines.

 

I think that the idea is being greatly overthought by some of us. Fact is Goose Island has said they will be more discriminating in choosing barrels. And this fact does not mean that they have decided the barrels were, or were not, the starting point.. It also doesn't mean they do or don't actually know the starting point. No amount of discussion here will change this.

Since only two things are actually known about this fiasco, i.e. the beer is infected, and the infection started somewhere, it is only logical for Goose Island to call out and want to eliminate all the possible ways that infection could start. Everything else is a matter of probability in our discussion of it.

And since there is no way for us to deduce an accurate starting point for the infection from info released by GI, it is logical to think barrels as the likely starting point, and stainless tanks as least likely, only because barrels are always the most likely starting point for infection in barreled beers, barrels are difficult to maintain sanitization, and stainless is used because it can be cleaned and sanitized easily and properly.

 

Exactly.

Also, I would add that some of that ambiguity you mention in the form of likelihoods results from the fact that cleaning and sanitizing has occasionally failed in the past, even with non barrel aged beers where there were no barrels to be faulted. E.G. The Bells Two Hearted batch(es) recalled a few years back that developed off flavors after bottling, or the case of a locally brewed Farmhouse Ale I bought that was replaced by a new case of fresher beer for basically the same reason.

 

1. it doesn't matter whether the exclusion was decided based on taste or lab testing. it does matter (to me) there was a sizeable "off" issue way before the tanks came into play.
   
   
2. the original infected kegs of BCBW (that went into normal distribution) were not purposely marketed as a soured BW, they were just as unexpected as the bottled product GI refunded. "Playing with Fire" was later marketed & AFAIK never saw distribution.
   
   
3. i think it there's a fundamental misunderstanding re: "the constitution of prior warning". many people were disgruntled over the fact that GI knew a larger than usual portion of coffee was off & dumped it. GI acknowledged barleywine was off as well. GI was in the process of refunding those 2 variants but their response was complete disbelief when a large swath of their loyal customers began to describe regular and prop being "off"? there was already prior (acknowledged) warning of "off" results with 2 different variants that utilized 2 different base beers.

 

So far 20 of my 24 bottles of '15 have been fine but anytime I have one with any bottle from 12 - 14 it's nowhere near as good. I might hang onto a bottle for several years but that's about it.