Green Flash Cellar 3 Series - "Silva Stout"

For my part, I did both. But, despite emailing the brewery a week ago, I haven't heard anything back, and don't really expect to. Accordingly, piping up on BA to warn others of the risk, just like @zac16125, seems the responsible thing to do, and distinctly un-dick. Just sayin'.

 

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. This beer is all off flavors, I thought that was clear by the diacetyl comment.

It didn't just not live up to my expectations, it was a bad batch or bottle. I'm confident enough in my beer drinking palate to claim that something was wrong. I've probably had 100 different imperial stouts, and that doesn't even count the multiples I've drank of most of those, and this is the first and only time I ever was not able to drink one. This wasn't a matter of "the $20 beer just wasn't that good and I'm disappointed". The bottle I had clearly had an issue, and whether that was an infection or some other quality control issue, it certainly was not supposed to taste like that.

 

@zac16125 I wish I had seen your post earlier!
I picked up a bottle this week, and at $20, if I have the same experience as you, I will be taking it back to the store for a refund for sure. I often sit on barrel stouts as I have a backlog, but this one is at the front of the queue now.

I actually find it interesting how many people just drainpour faulty beer, rather than return it. The chain by me (binnys) will let you return bad beer. I was surprised at first, but it makes sense - if you buy any other food product that isn't up to standard stores happily let you return it - the big liquor chain around here does the same thing I guess.

 

Interesting. I had actually never thought of that. Its of course not the stores fault (not like its as an IPA 2 years past its best before date), but I guess the store could then deal with the brewery directly or the distributor. Good advice.

 

i totally disagree with the logic, at least in this specific instance it's not stand-up IMHO. you have very fair warning well in advance. i would say if someone feels strongly about it beforehand - DON'T OPEN THE SHIT & THEN CRY. return it unopened, tell the store you've heard enough to spook you & you don't want to take a chance. that would be the honorable path to walk.

logically speaking there are all these members bitching about price increases & how do we increase distribution footprints, wish i could get/find blah blah blah. the tactic you describe absolutely can't be good for keeping costs in check. as a merchant i would be less willing to take chances bringing in EXPENSIVE, unproven, risky iterations - knowing my customer-base may revolt leaving me to deal with the loses. it may not seem like a big deal on an individual (one beer here, one beer there) level. overall ask yourself what the sum of many of us doing this means over a course of time? sometimes what makes sense to oneself can be pretty selfish in the long run to the whole. if you don't care, that's cool - not here to start a revolution but i sometimes cringe when i read these posts.

 

I actually called the store this morning, and the manager (who I know) told me to try it, and if it is bad, return it. @Highbrow - I have read some rave reviews and a few warnings - message seems to be that there are a few bad bottles in the batch, so I see no problem in having a bit of faith that it is indeed an awesome beer, and then returning it if it isn't and I happen to get a bad one.

I buy a lot of wine from the same store, and they have a very clear policy that if you get a corked bottle you can return it for replacement or refund - they stand by the quality of everything they sell and are very happy to throw down with distributors and producers who send them sub par products.

If you are asking what I think it will do? Answer is pretty simple to me - if the retail store pushes back on distributors and manufacturers that they are getting faulty product, then they have the clout to demand it be made right, or failing that, the power to refuse to stock said brewery until they do. It is basic customer service - 'oh, you got a bad bottle? Very sorry, let us take care of that for you'. From the retail stores perspective it is a great way to build loyal customers.

 

I'm not looking to recoup anything from anyone, I just want to add a data point. I just popped my Silva and it was a total butterscoth bomb. So buyer beware. There definitely seems to be a diacytel issue with this beer. Hopefully it is a small percentage of bottles.

 

Hmm - I think I might actually take @Highbrow s advice and return my bottle unopened... The receipt is in the wallet, and I am not loving the frequency of butter bomb reviews - there have been half a dozen this week already...

Sounds like it is pretty likely to be a bad batch...

 

Just bought a bottle of the most recent batch.

 

It may only be a small percentage of the bottles, but I just looked at the recent reviews; and there have been reports of the likely diacetyl problem from people in the Northeast, Southeast, South, Midwest, and Northwest--at the very least. Some glowing reviews suggest that not every last bottle was infected/off; but this was apparently a fairly widespread problem with this year's batch, for whatever reason. I started off by emailing Green Flash about the problem (haven't heard back), then posted on BA, then let the retailer where I got my bottle know. I figured that was the most responsible order, or close enough. Buyer indeed beware, at any rate.

 

I like butterscotch.

 

Mine had a very vinous red wine quality about it and not enough stout like qualities. Not sure if that's what th3 brewer was intending to go for or if it was "infected" per se. Needless to say, this wasn't my style and I wouldn't seek out again

 

I can't believe it's not butter! Not worth half of what I paid.

 

I think that your use of the word literal is not being used correctly.

 

FWIW I don't see any particular problem with returning a bad bottle after trying it. Of course you can't drink 20oz. of it and then try to pass it off. And you don't bring it back if it's just not to your taste. But what's the logic for returning it unopened? So the store can restock it and sell it to some uninformed patsy?

If anything it seems the right thing to do is try the bottle first, so that you're only returning it if there is a problem with it—and not because you got cold feet about dropping $15-$20 on something that might not 'wow' you. No, I think if you're returning it to the store—and they're taking the return—it's because they're happy to go to throw down on your behalf (in a case where the brewery apparently gives two fucks about emails from Joe Shmoe), not because they're just going to eat the cost for you.

 

Yeah that is what I was originally thinking, but I am yet to read anything good about batch 2... I will be interested I'm if green flash does anything, but I know the guys at my store and they would warn anyone else buying it that they have heard mixed things...

Tough call, but at heart I didn't spend 20 bucks to drink an average at best, likely butter bomb, so I will probably just go get an old stock bourbon barrel cellar reserve - I know I like that one!

 

As previously stated, it does seem to be a wide spread issue. I read reviews before purchasing mine thinking "Oh, I bet that's just hyperbole" and bought a couple anyways. My $34 mistake. FWIW, my bottle is "batch 1". Are all of the problems isolated to just batch 1?

 

Someone above mentioned that batch one was fantastic, and batch 2 was the problem - it might simply be random though - all the batches this year might have issues and it just depends on the bottle.

I think this is bottle conditioned right? I would be curious if anyone happens to know if diacetyl can be produced by bottle conditioning yeast?

 

That's what I was just thinking, is it possible that this is how the beer is intended to taste? People love the taste of vanilla, chocolate, etc., but then a beer tastes like butterscotch and people are talking about returning it?