Couverteur contamination?

Looks like you got the first bad one. From the e-mail that just came out:
"Dear Society Members,

Regrettably, after tasting and testing bottles of Couverteur over this past week, we have decided that it doesn't stand up to our standards. Some bottles we've tested are showing a decrease in pH, which is an indication of the presence of lactic acid producing bacteria. Couverteur initially passed our vigorous Quality Control process, so we are investigating why this beer slipped through the cracks. In the meantime, we'll be issuing an automatic refund to any of our Society members who have purchased this beer and we will be halting any future allocation pickups or future sales.

We know, this sucks. You don't have to tell us. It isn't the first time it has happened and in all honesty, due to our experimental nature, it may not be the last.

There are two sides to being a brewery as experimental as our own. On the hugely positive side, we have the opportunity to play with ingredients and processes that may scare away more traditional brewers, leading to incredibly delicious beers. Our curiosity can spur all sorts of exciting concepts and many times the only way for our dreams to become realities is to use unusual ingredients or risky brewing methods. On the negative side, sometimes things don't go as planned.

For many of our beers, Couverteur included, we add ingredients such as cacao nibs, vanilla beans, fruit or spices on the "cold side" of the brewing process. This means that we are adding a new ingredient to the beer towards the end of fermentation, well after the wort has been boiled and sanitized (the "hot side"). Adding ingredients on the cold side brings out flavors that are as bold and fresh as possible, different from what you'd get by more safely adding ingredients during the hot side of the process.

Bacteria and wild yeast strains live everywhere, and adding ingredients on the cold side increases the risk that they are introduced into the beer. One major step that we've taken to inhibit introduction of unwanted bacteria to our beer is by using an ozonator. This device is used to surround ingredients, such as cacao nibs and other late addition ingredients, with ozone gas (O3), which attacks and degrades any microbials that it contacts. It's a common method for sanitizing bottled drinking water and is often used in the wine industry, and now the beer industry, for sanitizing barrels and ingredients.

We're not sure why this process didn't work this time around, but it's possibly due to the density and compactness of cacao nibs. A lighter ingredient that allows more air flow between elements within its container would likely allow the ozone to flow better, killing off more microbials. As experimenters, we will learn from this mistake and make changes for future brews, not stopping until we've solved the problem.

Your satisfaction with your membership in our Hoarders and Reserve Societies is one of our highest priorities. And we thank you for being part of our world. Believe us when we say that we hate it when our beers don't turn out as we expected. The Bruery is a labor of love and it hurts us personally when we have to fall on our sword and admit to a fault in our beer, but we never want to release a beer that we don't steadfastly believe in.

Just to note again, refunds for bottles and shipping fees will be automatically processed beginning next week. We will not be fulfilling any pending orders for Couverteur."

 

From random, isolated incident to full-blown refund in a matter of days.

 

Infection roulette continues.

 

On Shrute Farms, Couverteur = Asparagus

 

Damn, that sucks. I had just ordered a bottle last week. At least I didn't pick it up so I will get a refund. Still, really disappointing. It looked like a great beer and a reasonable price point.

 

I credit them for giving refunds (albeit after their lab analysis apparently showed no problems, which is interesting in and of itself), but you're really stretching in calling them one of the best breweries out there at this point. Giving refunds for infected beers is what I would consider the absolute minimum for a brewery that wants to maintain its customer base, not something that should be strongly praised. Further, the "best breweries" don't release infected beer after infected beer, continually telling people how sorry they are but struggling to actually remedy the issue.

Make no mistake, I don't hold anything personally against the Bruery - they're good people and I have no doubt that they're genuinely trying to make great beer. However, they have not hit the mark over the past year, and the value of being an RS or HS member has been dropping. I genuinely hope they turn it around, I've been a fan since they opened and an RS/HS member since day one, but they need to seriously reconsider some of their processes. Experimentation is great, it has created some wonderful beers, but experimentation without proper quality control can be a rather disappointing game. If I wanted that, I'd blindly buy every bottle of Fantome I came across.

 

This is disappointing. I was looking forward to this one.

Its not clear from this what they plan to do for Preservation Society Members.

Willl we get a substitution? Will this quarter be a two bottle release with a partial refund?

 

I wish they shipped mine before deciding this.

 

Honestly, it's mind boggling that anyone has an opinion contrary to this. The Bruery has positioned itself as a premium purveyor of consumable products. In fact, they are at or near the top end of the industry in this respect. Yet they consistently and continually create and release poor quality, deeply flawed products. If you ordered several hundred dollars of prime beef and it arrived at your doorstep fetid and inedible, would you pat the butcher on the back for refunding your money? The Bruery did this multiple times last year. And they've now recalled multiple beers this year. In a sense, it's getting better, but the overall problem is getting worse. Getting a dozen or so exciting, drinkable beers is part of the benefit of the bargain that comes with joining the reserve society. And for the second year in a row, they've failed to deliver. This is my third year as a member of the reserve society, and it will unequivocally be my last. They have a serious, serious QC problem. They know it. They cannot seem to fix it. This means one of two things: they are either unable to fix it, or they are unwilling to do what it takes to do so. No matter what the answer to that question is, it's doesn't position The Bruery as "one of the best breweries around."

 

That was very well written. Hopefully when they get the new facility ready this may be a rarer occurance

 

Honestly, the fact that you're a first year RS member is a big factor in why you're praising The Bruery right now. Go read this blog post and contemplate how you would feel if this was not the first infected beer you've found out about from them. Hell, last year, we didn't even get refunds, we got credits that had to be used in certain time periods. From that standpoint, this is a step up, but using the word "best" after what has gone on for the past year is a joke.

 

Read between the lines here - this isn't a barreling issue or cross-contamination issue, they think it's from the adjuncts. Moving the sour beers to a new facility doesn't fix this. At best, it means that they don't have a handle on how to safely add adjuncts to beers that are under 18% ABV (which they admit to, under the guise of "it tastes better this way."). At worst, it's not the adjuncts and they're honestly baffled about how to fix the problem.

 

I think that's the major problem behind this. We thought RdF and FdR would be the last of the potential infections because it was part of the lump of lacto'ed bombs last year. But this one just shows that it's not all isolated to those batches and it's a problem that they still don't have a clue on why it's happening.

To see this go from an isolated incident that passed initial test to a full blown recall is even more troubling as it shows they don't even have a handle of it. I mean, they were able to spin that shit with the soured scotch ale and we just smiled and laughed as we didn't order any of it. But this one just shows that it can get away from them without even knowing about it until its in the customers hands.

That in itself is some troubling QC issues that need to be tackled asap.

 

It'll probably be like Cacaonut where they pulled the bottle from my allocation and refunded the cost of the beer with no substitution. The idea is that they give society members special beers that are fairly exclusive. I doubt they have something exclusive in a large enough quantity to backfill in the timeframe of the release.

 

Honestly, the most frustrating aspect of the infection issues is that batch sizes were reduced on most beers. I didn't care about Couverteur even before the infection, but a limit of 4 Sans makes me sad - and even more so with another wasted beer taking up brew space.

 

That's sound logic - everything is black and white, don't express your discontent and work to change it, just walk away. I already stated in this thread I'm a fan of the Bruery, and while there is a breaking point at which I'll no longer be a member, I'm not quite there yet. We'll see what happens between now and renewal time, but until then, I'll give my opinion in hopes that the Bruery will listen to its HS and RS members.

If you genuinely think that refunding because of a screwup is something worthy of praise, then you have pretty low expectations of the businesses that you give your money to. I know we all want to be supportive of breweries and feel like we're part of community, but it's worth remembering that they are businesses whose goal is to make a profit - giving a refund isn't being nice, it's their responsibility to stand behind a product, and quite frankly, a necessity if they want to stay in business long term.

The Sans product page says it will be available for limited sales at the tasting room, so I suspect that you'll be able to order more bottles online after the allocation period ends.

 

They've probably got a whole lot of Soroboruo sitting around the warehouse...