Defective Bourbon County Bottles

There is definitely something off on the fills for my 4-pack. We drank the lowest one figuring the one with the most air might not age as well, but we marked the level and it was the same as mhksuccess photo.

I was curious, so I filled the empty with exactly 354.8 grams of water (I happen to have a very accurate scale handy) which should be exactly 12 US fluid ounces of water.

The empty bottle on the left has 2 marks; top line is where 12 ounces should be, bottom line is where it was. I figured out the difference, and it was 14 grams of water, which is half an ounce. I would think the others are about one third of an ounce short - not a lot, but consistently short by about 3-4%. I have no idea if this is consistent across the entire batch, but all my bottles are low for sure, so I emailed goose island - will update if they reply.

Comparing to all my other beers the bourbon county is definitely short - consistently below the fill level of the half dozen other brands I checked.

 

There's some crud on your bottle.

 

That may be "kind of" true aside from the fact that GI employees are technically, well not technically, they are AB-Inbev employees. Additionally, even if they "do not touch the beer" you'd better believe Corporate has every say in what goes in the beer, how it's marketed, how it's distributed, etc. etc. So no, the execs may not touch the beer, but they do control everything about the beer and name outright. They didn't acquire GI for s**ts & giggles, they acquired them for the money and now they control everything.

 

the no mold bottle looks like it has a crack in the neck - maybe it's just the picture. If that is a crack, I would drink it before it starts looking like the others

 

doesn't make a bit of sense that this problem would be so widespread if that were the case.

 

Actually this gets to something I've wondered about before: whether the '12 oz.' statement refers to weight or volume.

With all of the sugar in this beer it's definitely heavier than water, so if the labelling refers to weight then the net contents statement may be accurate. I'd be curious to see what weight of beer you pour from the next bottle. I'm also curious what GI / AB replies.


edit:

What do you mean? That the mould is not due to beer on the bottle exterior? I've seen patches of it on bottles with higher-gravity beers a fair number of times; it's not unheard of.

 

It's not a crack, those lines are on every bottle. Just drank a 2013 last night with the same lines.

Unless you mean those curvy lines on the neck, which would be cat hair!

 

It was the cat hair, lol

 

How rare is BCS anymore? Just asking bg my local Costco had a pallet of it

 

What do you mean? That the mould is not due to beer on the bottle exterior? I've seen patches of it on bottles with higher-gravity beers a fair number of times; it's not unheard of.[/QUOTE]

I was referring to the idea that a beer spilled on the bottles. Considering it is so widespread, it seems a lot more likely that there is a defect in the packaging. Of course the likely source of the mold is beer on the outside of the bottles.

 

I bought 2 4packs of the regular, dated bottled 9/11 and 13.8% ABV. No mold or dirty necks, but after reading this I inspected closely and did notice 2 with some cracking / bubbles on the glass on the neck. Very strange, never seen before but I certainly don't look for it normally. If this was a problem with bottling / storage at GI, hopefully they get fixed before next year.

I did open one of the bottles with "crack" in neck and it tasted good so I don't think it caused any problems, but plan to cellar most of the them.

 

Hey, hey, hey...Isn't it Kohatu and Belma? Lets not spread lies here, if BA folks hear that it has citra in it they'll clear out the shelves in a day.

I just picked up a bottle yesterday too, looking forward to trying it today

 

Less rare every year but craft beer popularity is exponentially growing it seems, so every year there are hoards of people who have heard about it but have not yet had it and they jump right in the hunt.

 

Fair question - I have always assumed it is volume based, but I don't know the actual laws. the bottle definitely says 355 milliliters on it, and that has to be a volume measure.

 

Federal regulations- PART 7—LABELING AND ADVERTISING OF MALT BEVERAGES

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Apologies to those who take offense at people citing facts from reliable sources.

 

Those barrels aren't going to be available forever. The ones GI uses are becoming increasingly harder to get.

 

No apology needed - this confirms what I have always just assumed and is the exact answer

 

Just inspected the BCBS bottles that I picked up on Friday. No cracks or mold. Purchased these at two separate locations in MD.

 

Thanks. You are an unstoppable fount of knowledge. I'd poked around a few times looking for a statement like that, but everything I came across used 'net contents' as self-evident in meaning.

From weighing a bunch of beers out of curiosity, I've noticed a lot of European brewers seem to fill by water-volume-equivalent weight (e.g., a 330ml bottle measures out 331g of beer), while American packaging is pretty consistently 'over-weight' (e.g., a 12oz bottle pours 12.6oz of beer, suggesting it actually was filled to 12 fluid ounces).

 

This thread got me paranoid about my 4-pk. All bottles are fine here in Dallas. No mold, no fill issues.