Customer Dissatisfaction

The fact that you detected a "sour note" doesn't mean the beer was infected. On top of that, you liked the beer. I don't see the problem and quite frankly you sound a bit *********y.

 

It sounds tasty to me.

 

Be lucky you got a reply at all. Some big breweries are very good at responding. The smaller ones can bit hit-and-miss.

Was it an ideal response? Not really; in terms of what I would deem "good customer service."

If you think quality control may be an issue...just pass it along. If the beer or the customer service isn't to your
liking, feel free to "vote with your dollars" and spend your $ elsewhere.

 

The response definitely wasn't professional, but since I don't know what you said when you contacted them I can't really comment much further than that.

$8.50 a can though....

 

My memory is hazy, it's been at least a decade, but I recall meeting with a bunch of brewers at The Ginger Man in NYC (probably set up by Garrett Oliver as part of an MBAA meeting prior to the main presentation at the Brooklyn Brewery) and a representative from Harvey's (might have been Miles Jenner) brought their version of the A. Le Coq Imperial Stout in a 5 gallon collapsible camp water jug! That shows the time, right? He actually took it on the plane with him! Anyway, it definitely had a sour note to it and I asked him if perhaps it was off and he told me that it wasn't, it tasted exactly like it did right out of the brewery just a few hours earlier.

 

Hard to judge the response you got without seeing the letter it was responding to.

In a general sense, though, I suspect that what constitutes a "to-style" beer, Baltic Porter or otherwise, is an abstraction that's very important to some people and considerably less so to others, including brewers.

 

I'm with you on their response, but I also get their point of view. You should look up reviews of that beer. If it's "Warped Wing Baltic Argonaut" for example than it's probably you based on other reviews. What beer was it? Did other's find it sour? What you are describing sounds like a bizarre beer (tart salted caramel, funk, dark fruit?). I think it's worth looking at other reviews and see if you were the only one who had an issue.

Still, with the above, it is odd when brewery gives you a "whats the problem" response, that's not the best customer service. Many places aren't know for their customer service either.

 

Did you drink both cans?

 

Complaining to a brewery about a beer you enjoyed is pretty lame. Maybe they should ban you.

 

Some the comments are harshing my mellow! Remind me not to complain about breweries here!

 

@BradenMK, it is difficult for others to properly provide opinions unless you provide more information.

Would you be willing to post the message that you sent the brewery? Are you willing to provide the specifics of the beer (e.g., brand/brewery) so we have better knowledge here?

Cheers!

 

Maybe your mouth was having a bad day.

You have to look at it from the breweries perspective. If you were the only one to send them an email stating their beer was off, why should they believe you? Now, if you were one of many to call them out on a well known issue, that's another story.

 

What percentage of people who have a bad experience actually take the time to tell the company about it? I thought last I've heard it was somewhere between 1-5%.

The remaining people either think it's a one-off event or think the company is bad and they may lose customers.

If one person brings up a potential quality problem like an unexpected sour flavor that could be a sign of infection the brewery should try to do some investigation whether that was actually the case... If it is then the problem can get much worse (lowering the breweries reputation).

Even only one complaint of something that could be indicative of a quality problem should cause alarm because there are many many other people that just won't report the issue...

Now if the brewer wanted a bit of sourness in the beer due to addition of acidulated malt, or lactic acid, or a fermentation process then that's expected... The brewer would be better served just saying that is what they were going for with the beer.

 

. I have heard all kinds of stories about how wonderful it is to contact a brewery. They send you free beer and swag and everything. No brewery has ever treated me that way. The first thing you discover is freshness and expired, off or stale beer. If you think that then you can always take the beer back to the store. also not the first impusle. The first impulse is to contact the brewery especially if you bought a bomber. The store will take back a sixer or a case if only one beer is opened and if the dates are on the can. If not, then maybe not. Wegmans will take it back no matter if the date is on it as long as only one beer is opened. . The only brewer who ever sent me money back directly for a bad beer was Sam Adams.

 

your noncommital approval of the beer meet with an appropriate what do you want me to tell you. writing and looking for a complaint without having the reference point for having one is sort of weird.

 

It seems like most new boutique breweries these days strive to brew nowhere close to a stated style and its lauded as innovation - so I understand if you were disappointed in not getting what you expected. But not knowing what kind of brewery this was - now I know that if I over a kolsch from a trendy brewery it will taste nothing like a real kolsch at all.

 

You know what? The problem with infections in beer are not that they initially provide some small off-flavors.

But that the micro-organisms creating the infection often ferment a lot more than the yeast originally used.

Someone noticing hints of an infection at the beginning of a beers lifespan even if they enjoy the interplay between the flavors can lead to cans exploding or gushing and being a big problem... Even if one person likes the flavors but is comfortable bringing up potential problems doesn't mean that everyone that receives the same product will feel the same way.

IF the brewer did not intend for the beer to have a sour flavor, do they want new customers judging them based on beers that may be infected and not what the brewery intended?

If there are customers that hate the beer then they probably won't continue buying it even if later batches are not sour.
If customers love the beer but then drink later batches that are different they may have a low opinion of the brewery.

In no instance is it right for the brewery to just shrug this off. If it's what they intended then that's fine...

But as other people have pointed out it entirely depends on how the information was provided to the brewery. We don't know anything about the email sent to the brewery or who they are to know what was intended.

 

I've never had a negative experience with a brewer, but I have with a software company. How dare I tell them that there is a major bug or a promised feature wasn't implemented, etc. The fanbois on the forum start calling you "entitlement gamer" and such to defend their favorite software developer.

Even in this thread, several people have resorted to name calling...

There are so many breweries open now, and so many beer stores with huge selections that if I taste more than one bad (or meh**) beer, I simply vote with my dollars and move on to the next brewery.

** beer prices are too high nowadays to bend over and accept mediocrity...