Flawed wheat beer?

Definitely, that sounds like a major flaw

 

Contact the brewery. Don't wait for a reply though. Oddly enough, out the handful of times I have contacted a brewery with a complaint it has been the bigger breweries that have replied back. What beer was it?

 

A new brewery? Most ground water in MI has high Alkalinity, water from the big lakes is moderate. Did they miss the acid addition?

Contact them. Can you say what town or county they are located in? You may not want to name them.

 

Is this how you guys make great pizza?

 

It definitely should NOT taste like that. Authentic Bavarian Hefeweizen may have a high bicarbonate content, but its offset by the acidity from the fermentation. You should get a strong banana and clove flavor and aroma, and perhaps some vanilla. But not an overpowering mineral/alka-seltzer flavor.

That's also unacceptable IMHO. In theory, the larger the brewery, the harder it is to respond to customer complaints (because the volume of distribution, reach, and network is exponentially bigger, as is the supply chain). Every brewery should strive to address these issues, especially if they are QC related.

 

More how they can make great dark beer here.

 

Absolutely. If they have a QC/QA, the dept should immediately look into something like this and respond, especially if they have library samples it's maybe an hour or less worth of work to comfort a customer or realize you have a problem you let out the door...

 

Permit me to tell a story from a few months ago.

I purchased a 6-pack (cans) of a seasonal beer that I have always liked from previous years. Unfortunately this 6-pack had an issue of too high a level of diacetyl; it had flavors of butter/butterscotch. I made a comment concerning this beer on BA and somebody from the brewery contacted me.

We exchanged a number of e-mails. They requested I send them the remaining cans from that 6-pack. They provided me with a UPS mailing slip and I packed up the remaining cans and sent them. They analyzed the cans and lo and behold the diacetyl levels were too high in that batch. They then sent me a check to cover my costs (and them some).

Hindsight being 20/20 I should have just reached out to the brewery directly with my concerns.

Cheers!

 

Should always contact the brewery, I know that if it truly is an issue the brewery wants to know as soon as possible, especially if it was something that went unnoticed after release.

 

“Should always contact the brewer…” You are right!!

So, a thought that occurred to me over this past incident….

I figure with your QC background to might have some ideas here.

For the beer at issue the brewery had a problem with a batch having too much diacetyl. Apparently they have a lab there to test for this since they tested the cans I sent them.

Why wasn’t the diacetyl issue discovered prior to packaging this beer? There were multiple ways that this issue could have been discovered at the brewery:

· A simple taste test prior to committing this batch to packaging

· An assay of the diacetyl levels in their lab prior to packaging

· Other?

I would appreciate hearing your thoughts here.

Cheers!

P.S. I also experienced excess diacetyl for this beer while drinking a draft pint at a local beer bar.

 

It is likely they are releasing based on taste perimeters and specification guidelines (ABV, IBU, etc) and not spending the time or money to GC/MS each tank as they're preparing for bottling, too labor intensive and costly usually. If they have a bunch of tasters who are relatively blind to diacetyl that could be one reason, was the beer unfiltered? if so it could have developed after the fact, I know I have seen this once or twice before. Are you sure they didn't send it out for testing? I only know a few QC labs that have in house GC/MS.

 

I know they have a lab since I have seen job posting for QC/QA Lab Technicians for this brewery.

I have no idea what specific equipment they have in their lab.

Cheers!

Edit: I was told by my contact at the brewery that the 'source' of the diacetyl was insufficient fermentation time within the fermenter. How they specifically arrived at that conclusion I do not know.

 

Jack- even if the beer comes out of the sensory panel clean of diacetyl there could still be the precursor AAL (alpha acetolactate). The test for this is to heat up the beer in the presence of oxygen. This will accelerate the conversion into diacetyl which can be detected.

 

Yet another reason why cold storage is imperative even AFTER the beer has been packaged. :-)

 

Preach it. From your lips to every breweries ears, because when I say it I get an eye roll.

 

And it could also be due to the beer having an improper fermentation schedule which is what the brewery contact related to me.

Cheers!

 

Interesting that you chose two items that have virtually no smell.