Jester King Collabs

Glad you enjoyed it. Typically, Brettanomyces will consume the compounds from the pedio, so I wouldn't expect the bit of ropiness to persist over time.

No plans for batch 2 Coquetier right now, but I'd like to brew that again at some point. Cheers.

 

Fantôme Del Rey "Ropiness"




Earlier this week here at the brewery, I noticed that our recently released Fantôme Del Rey had become “ropy”. When I tasted it, the mouthfeel and texture had a slickness to it, and the beer poured into my glass with some viscosity. I was happy with the aroma and flavor, but the texture definitely left something to be desired.


As a result, we’re going to put sales of Fantôme Del Rey on hiatus. Our hope is that the Brettanomyces yeast contained in our mixed culture will resolve the issue over time. The slickness in the mouthfeel is most likely attributable to the lactic acid producing bacteria Pediococcus. According to the Milk the Funk Wiki (one of my favorite websites), Pediococcus may cause ropiness due to the production of exopolysaccharides, which mostly effect mouthfeel and appearance. Brettanomyces has the ability to break down exopolysaccharides over time.


It’s hard to know how long Brettanomyces may take to hopefully resolve the issue. I think it’s safe to assume we’re looking at months, not weeks. My hope is that in three or four months, the ropiness will have dissipated. But there’s no certainty to this. Only time will tell. If you have purchased Fantôme Del Rey, my recommendation is to age the bottle(s), preferably on its side in a warm spot, for at least three months. We’ll be opening bottles in-house and will provide updates on how the beer is progressing. If you find this impractical and/or undesirable, no problem at all. Please e-mail me directly at [email protected], and I will make things right for you.


How Fantôme Del Rey ended up becoming ropy is a bit of a mystery to us. The beer went through a number of iterations on its journey to blending and bottling, and our mixed culture was given a number of opportunities to express itself. Old, barrel-aged beer brewed in August of 2014 with dark candi syrup, ground coriander, and black peppercorn, and fermented with truffle honey, was blended with young beer and bottle conditioned. Like all our beer (aside from our spontaneous fermentations), it was fermented with our mixed culture, which contains dozens of native microorganisms, many of which we don’t even know what they are. Mixed culture fermentation is always a roll of the dice. The results can be absolutely beautiful at times, but we also routinely taste beer we’re unhappy with, which we further age or discard. The fermentation is outside our direct control, and we merely create an environment for the microorganisms to express themselves in unique ways. In this case unfortunately, a fermentation issue became apparent after we had already released the beer.


I apologize that one of our beers isn’t presenting the way we want it to. While off-flavors and flaws in beer can be subjective (for instance, we enjoy the lightstruck character in beer we get from packaging in green bottles), I find ropiness to be a distraction and impediment to enjoying beer. In the end, our goal is to make beer that’s drinkable and enjoyable. Unfortunately, I think the ropiness currently found in Fantôme Del Rey causes it to dip below this standard, which is why we won’t be selling any more of the batch for the time being.

— Jeffrey Stuffings, Founder

 

That's what happens when you put fantôme on the name of your bottle
@jesterkingbeer I've had this happen to one of my sours before, it eventually went away after a few months.

 

Respect that decision and appreciate the info.

Looking forward to when it's re-released, loved the first bottle I had, ropiness and all.

 

I liked it a bit more viscous, it made it different, more interesting. It was still balanced and drinkable.
Good thing I snagged a few bottles before it's pulled.

 

@jesterkingbeer Is this just for sales at the brewery? What about bottles already out in the TX market?

 

Am I the only person amused at the fact that the beer most praised in this topic is the one that is showcasing an off characteristic? Ha, we certainly like our beers to be weird and unique

 

It's actually not, that would be Buford's. Check the poll above.

Although, a lot of people did mention liking it. So, in a way it shows that most people don't actually know appropriate style characteristics that well. At the same time though, the ropyness might not have been present when those people tasted the beer and/or some people just like that type of mouthfeel anyway I guess.

 

Maybe appropriate style characteristics < personal preference

 

@jesterkingbeer Is there a password or handshake we can use to still purchase bottles, noting that we are aware of this issue?

We will be making the rare 9 hour round trip to JK this weekend, and was hoping to pick a couple of bottles. Gas+time are more valuable than the loss I would take if I wasnt happy with the bottle. But I can understand if you dont want it getting out there if you arent happy with the final product. Thanks!

 

Right, hence:

 

The spices might drop off a little bit (probably not much), but sitting on this beer for 6 months might result in something really special. Belgian lambic brewers (and Vinnie Cilurzo) actually prefer when their beer gets sick because it adds to the complexity and the final mouthfeel of the beer after the ropiness goes away (3-6 months). Age it at room temp for 3-6 months is my advice.

 

No, it won't be for sale at the brewery until the ropiness goes away. There's not a whole lot we can do about bottles already out in the TX market, short of a recall, which I don't believe is warranted in this case. For people who bought bottles already and aren't happy with the situation, I've asked them to contact me directly and I'll attempt to make things right.

 

It's at a ton of grocery stores right now + Spec's if you really need a bottle. Probably no limit at most places too. You know what you're getting yourself into. I just so happened to have bought a bottle today over lunch and saw this after I came back.

 

I think JK's choice is quite professional. However, it's a texture 'issue' that comes from the mixed fermentation that they have determined not to be up to their standards. People's opinions on texture vary.

If it was an obvious off flavor like diacetyl or strong acetic acid, this would unquestionably be the right move. However, a fair number of JK (or other mixed fermentation) releases go through sick phases after release (sometimes quite a long time after I've been told)-- such things will be unavoidable due to the yeast medium. I suppose a few may warrant sales stoppage, most times they likely don't (or haven't). I wonder what the threshold is.

 

For what it's worth, I'm digging the hell out of Cloudfeeder. Subtlety is key here, and the low alcohol makes it a nice 'table' beer.

 

Which other releases have gone through a pedio sick phase post-release? I can't think of any, aside from Snorkel b1, and those had only been given out to the crew at that time (and told not to drink or share). I imagine any other release that is showing 'ropiness' across the board, would have warranted the same pull-back as this. Or in the case they are no longer available, at least a statement would have been sent out.

 

He was talking about sick phases in terms of flavors, not pedio in particular.

 

I like the secret handshake idea. Please make this a thing also for access to rare vintages and special bottles. One of the most awesome and unexpected surprises I've had at Jester King was a special whiskey stout that was on tap on Super Bowl day.

Back on topic, I really dig most of JK's offerings but usually prefer their own beers over the collabs I've tried. However, I recently had an Intersection of Species and was really impressed by it. I could drink it every day.