I know, yet another hair of the dog thread. I just cracked open a bottle of blue dot and am disappointed that there almost no carbonation. It's the spring release which could be why there's no carbonation because it isn't fresh. Anyone else had this problem? I had a bottle of fred before that had this problem too
Do I contact the brew supply shop I bought it from? Do I contact hotd? I spent 8 bucks on this thing :/
If you felt you had a bad bottle, I would take it back to the store you got it from. In theory, they should be able to get a credit from the brewery for it (I know, I know... it depends on the brewery as to whether or not they want to do this, but I'll wager that HOTD will/would). That being said, based on what you're saying here, I'd say your chances are no better than 50-50 as to whether the store will refund your money for the "off" bottle. You can try contacting HOTD as well, and they might be willing to give you a refund as well. However, I think that's asking a lot of the brewery, as there's no telling how the beer was stored at the store, or what else might have happened to it before it came into your hands.
Blue Dot is one of those beers from HotD that can vary greatly in quality. I've never had a bad Adam or Fred, but Blue Dot is about 50:50 in my experience.
+1 to this. I'm a big fan of Blue Dot on draft (still some batch variation, but nothing like what you often encounter with the bottled version), but I've had so many less then stellar bottles of BD, that I've pretty much stopped buying BD bottles. Of course living in Oregon and having access to draft BD pretty much whenever I want makes it a lot easier for me to pass on BD bottles.
Hell, in my neck of the woods, we've only seen bottles of Blue Dot for less than two years, draft BD is just crazy talk!
+2. Every bottle of Blue Dot I have bought has had minimal carbonation. I probably bought 4 or 5 bottles from various batches thinking it would get better. Nope. At this point, I just pass on it. No need to waste money on BD when there are so many other local NW options. I'm about 50/50 on Adam and Fred so I'll probably cross them off my "buy list" as well.
I stopped getting bottles as well. just too much of a gamble. I do pick up adam and fred and the dock stuff. I do think they should bottle that cherry lila though. I really dug it.
If I was Alan, I would seriously consider bringing in help to get this figured out. His quality control is damn near abysmal at this point. Im lucky that I work across the bridge from the taproom so I can enjoy any of his beers at their best, but I too have stopped buying bottles. Last 3-4 Freds have been flat, and Blue Dot is all over the place. latest Adam From the Wood bottles tasted like flat Dr Pepper and Jameson (although on tap it was magnificent). Adam & Ruth tend to be reliable, but thats about it.
