Bottle Logic Brewing (2020)

Yes actually!! I thought that was really good, but very different. More dark fruit and a lot of wine-like notes.

This is both simultaneously more decadent and rich, and also more complex and deep. It has flavors that are almost pastry-like, but it's not gloppy viscous or anything. And of course, it all seems to be coming from the barrel magic. It's hard to explain but right now I'm getting a nose full of vanilla nougat.

I'm nursing the hell out of this, making it last as long as I can. Half a bottle left. It's warming beautifully.

 

There’s a reason it won Best in Show at FOBAB. It’s a stellar barleywine. Incredibly underrated.

 

Loved Arcane and both the variants they had on tap. I was surprised by how great it was.

 

Jealous about the variants

 

Flesh to Stone was my favorite variant. Brandy right in the face but so smooth.

 

RFI with a four bottle limit? Man. February is going to start off expensive.

 

Where did you see four bottle limit? I'm hoping so, missed that last round

 

It’s on the Instagram post

 

The eventbrite page.

 

FYI, for those of you following the Number Crunch drama:

“We test in-house for Pediococcus, Lactobacillus, and Dekkera/Brettanomyces with the industry-standard BrewPAL and BrewDEK tests at each stage of the debarreling and packaging processes. These tests came back negative throughout the beer's movement, so we know the liquid was clean as it made its way to bottles.

After receiving a handful of messages similar to yours, we sent several control bottles down to White Labs in San Diego for a full-panel workup in their world-class facility. Their extensive testing confirmed our in-house results -- there are no foreign yeast strains or known beer spoilers present in the liquid.

Unsatisfied, we've held tasting panels here at the brewery over the last three weeks and have experienced odd flavors in a few of the bottles we've opened. Working backward armed with the powerful reports from White Labs and the odd flavors we've experienced ourselves, we hypothesize that we're looking at a DO (dissolved oxygen) problem that will have affected bottles that moved through a single faulty capping channel (out of six) on our bottling line. Over time, increased amounts of dissolved oxygen in a bottle would affect the natural oils of the considerable cacao nib additions, melding them into off-base, undesired flavors.

Regardless of the cause, the result is that a small number of our customers ended up with bottles of Number Crunch that fall short of their (and our) expectations. I'm here to help and will work directly with anyone who reaches out in order to make things right.”

BL has offered either Eventbrite refunds or bottle exchanges (for non-Number Crunch bottles, interestingly). Those were my options, even though I tossed my bad bottle when BL initially offered to replace my bad bottle with a control bottle from their storage. If you still have your bottle(s) there might be more options I am not privy to.

I couldn't be more impressed with how the brewery has handled this issue, from the steady stream of updates throughout the process to the proposed solutions. Thanks, Lindsay and everyone else at BL for your efforts.

 

Thanks for sharing this. The question now is what do I do with my last 2 bottles? On one had I want them because they're probably delicious. On the other hand, I could lose and get a crappy one and be SoL.

 

I’m nearly certain Bottle Logic will still refund or swap a bad bottle even if it’s empty.

 

They swapped empty bottles of the last infected one for bottles of JtR. I'd wait to hear it from them, but that's how it went down last time.

 

That's what they did for Byzantine, since there's only one way to know if your bottle if off. Of course, that was far less bottles to replace back then, so it may be different now. They're pretty solid all around with their responses though.

 

Was this an email exchange? I can’t find any mention of this on social media.
I have about 4 bottles and am not sure how I want to handle the situation as this is one of my favorite beers.

 

They clearly don't want to make an official recall since it seems to be a decently limited issue. Just drink your bottles assuming they're good, and if they aren't reach out & i'm certain bottle logic will take care of you.

 

That was in an email. One could assume the issue affects 1/6th of the bottles since she described the issue as being with one of their six capping channels. But, you know what happens when one assumes...

Might as well drink one and try? I've been following on Untappd all along since I first reported it to BL and have seen pretty mixed results but the "no infection here"s certainly seem to outweigh "tastes off".

 

Yes, I'm familiar with that slogan! We use it too often at work.

I have a few bottles. I figure I better drink sooner rather than later. And email if they are "off" flavors.

 

Untapp'd isn't always the best guide. There's many people that wouldn't know what the signs of an infection are but saw someone else's checkin mention it. The desire for some to jump on a bandwagon is something that always amazes me.

How many BAs have actually tasted these 'off flavors' or 'infection'? I personally hold more weight with BA taste buds

 

I mean...I have. Purchased 3 bottles. One was for a friend, one was consumed on August 11th and I really, really enjoyed it. Consumed my last bottle on Dec. 17th and, as I described it in my email to Lindsay, "The carbonation was much livelier than I remember. The aroma was close to what I expected (fudge-y, vanilla, a touch of booziness), but the taste was very much "off" to me. There was a pronounced tartness (enough to activate my salivary glands). After a few sips, I decided to let the liquid warm up to room temperature to see if it made a difference. It did not."

It wasn't nearly as obvious as, say, the 2015 BCBS infection. It was more...stale tasting. Briny, maybe? Which I suppose makes sense in light of BL's findings. And as of 12/17/19 there was only one other person who mentioned anything unusual on Untappd. I scrolled through countless check-ins because I felt like a crazy person at the time. I can't say for certain if that other Untappd user and I set off a firestorm of bandwagon jumpers or not, but I know what I tasted and I (most of the time!) trust my palate.