Cuvee De Tomme

Or an infection.

 

Opened one today, not sure of vintage, but zero carbonation to speak of.

 

i had a bottle of BA santa this year and it was carbonated. tasted pretty good too. we also enjoyed it right before opening a 2011 churchills, which was pretty phenomenal.

 

It's not hard at all to carbonate 15% beers
They do it when it's on tap.
Use a carb stone and dont naturally carb with yeast and sugar

Pretty simple to me
Founders does it

 

i dont want to get into a 20 post LA-carbonation argument with you but arent there plenty of other breweries who have produced beers in the 12-18 range that dont have these problems? some quick ones that come to mind are GI, dark horse, the bruery, DFH, founders, etc.

im a LA fan but i find it disappointing and hilarious (at the same time) that they cant seem to get this under control despite making some really delicious beers. im lucky to live in a place where we get to have most of them on tap so i dont have to deal with it as much, but id really like to see them figure out the issues with the BA beers they make.

 

You're correct, many brewers have found ways to brew high ABV beers and produce a carbonated product. That was my point exactly. LA has failed in this area.

I personally haven't brewed as high as 16%, but I do a yearly barleywine that hits between 11% and 12% that is fermented with good ol' S-05 chico dry yeast, and gets just a pinch more of the same yeast per bottle at bottling time. Never had a flat bottle yet. In fact, you can see it in my avatar.

 

i don't think any of those are bottle conditioned. that's the key difference.

:shrug: i imagine that depends on the residual sugar you're aiming for, and other factors. i'm sure if it were a 100% process, hair of the dog would have nailed it at least. whatever the case, i'm not trying to say people should overlook the problems if they don't like them. i think they should buy something else rather than keep buying and complaining. from my pov, the risk is built-in to the process. i happen not to mind flatness, i understand others do mind it.

 

I haven't opened one yet, but I don't mind if my bottles of Cuvee are under-carbed, because I think it suits the style well.

I homebrewed a 11% DIPA and we bottle conditioned it. I pitched a huge starter to ensure larger numbers, and crossed my fingers that the starter didn't alter the flavor of the beer too much. It turned out just fine, but if I had pitched a regular starter, it probably wouldn't have worked.

 

That IS the key difference. Why is bottle conditioning so important that it's worth ripping off your customer base? If it's not working, there is PROOF that there are other ways. Style over substance man, plain and simple.

:shrug: = good response. I imagine it depends on aiming for a good beer, and although Hair Of The Dog has had problems, they aren't the consistent DISASTER of a problem that LA is having, with no apparent solution in sight, and they handled it from a customer service perspective quite well.

To be clear, light carbonation is NOT a problem. My own barleywine, as well as my favorite commercial versions, are lightly carbonated. It's PERFECT that way. Same with imperial stouts. But when it's FLAT... I mean, you could shake that shit in a paint mixer and not even get a mouse fart when you open it... that's a fucking flaw, especially when the SAME beer on tap has perfect carbonation. That means one thing - the bottles are FAIL. And calling your customer base (paraphrasing) the pitcher for the opposing team, delivering "chin music", well... that's arrogance at its finest. Too bad Stone already trademarked "Arrogant Bastard". I can think of someone more deserving, in a pejorative sense.

 

Serious question:

If the beer does not even get carbonated because of insufficient/weak yeast, then does it stand any chance to develop via bottle conditioning?

 

:yawn:

 

As stated above, Founders does force-carbonation, so it's hardly lame or amateur to do so. If you consistently fail at bottle conditioning, time to try something else.

 

probably not. i gather it's a half-life phenomenon that can progress towards t = infinity. at some constant tau, you've attenuated half of the sugar and produced some commensurate amount of alcohol, which provides two suppressing factors (higher toxicity for the yeast as well as less sugar to work with). when you raise the abv to start with, you effectively lengthen the tau due to the toxicity suppression. that's how i see it at least.

well, unless you're alan sprints. then you get a pass.

 

I know some of "lazy" gueuze like Loerik and Doesjet started off with very low but matured and reach full carbonation after a few years in the bottle.

 

Three questions regarding Alan Sprints:
1) how many times did he have carbonation problems?
2) how did he make it right?
3) did he blame his douchebag idiot slackjaw customers?

 

1) he had an entire batch of fred that was flat, first batch of matt was flat, latest batch of cherry adam was flat, half of doggie claws 2009 was flat. in addition to various issues with adam.
2) he didn't. he said, " it's all in the game, yo. " he released bourbon fred for a cheaper price at the brewery, but in distribution it was $13-$15 a bottle, same as angel's share.

it should be noted that i'm a huge fan of hair of the dog, in case you're going to flounder into that territory next. but he gets a pass from the pitchfork mob.