Major Letdown!

Dirty lines shouldnt have a major effect on beers that tend to move pretty quickly.

Now if its a dirty line and a slow moving tap, I could see how stuff festers.

But generally speaking, a soy sauce flavor should not happen that quickly to a beer, unless the lines were very very very dirty, or it had been sitting for awhile and no one drank it.

In most cases, when I hear dirty lines, its more about flavors from the past beer being somewhat present in the new beer. Ie, a stout being kicked, and they throw on a hefe that still has some stout flavors.. Dirty doesnt always equate to infected.

As someone else pointed out, maybe something was up with the entire keg or your palate that day.

Just recently I had some NE IPAs. Maybe too many of them because for three days after, these WC style IPAs that I had had this odd green pepper/celery/vegetal smell and taste. That subsided within a week. But it just goes to show how fragile our palates are.

Maybe the beer prior to BCBS in that particular spot was a soy sauce bomb of a stout. I would ask what was on tap before hand/ That's probably where the issue lies more than it being an infection

 

Maybe they accidentally tapped a keg of Kikkoman?

 

Kikkoman Japanese Imperial Stout (JIS)?

 

I've had quite a number of beers that have had metallic notes and not be infected. From what I understand, one particular cause of the taste is oxidation.

 

Metallic is an off-flavor in beer, not an infection. I have never heard of metallic being a flavor associated with oxidation, which is described as cardboard, wet paper, or sometimes honey. Metallic is most commonly associated with improperly cared for equipment, in the brewery, the bar, or the keg itself, and not a result of the actual brewing process.

 

ISO:

 

The lines had left over Dark Lord.

 

^^this. also from what i understand, bad carbonation & sometimes excessive carbonation can also lead to metallic notes.

@EvenMoreJesus i think i mistakenly misquoted a brewer i've spoken with who noted off tastes in their products coming from oxidation tied to specific added components/adjuncts. i went back through the details & "metallic" was not one of the off notes described. my bad, there. i do feel pretty strongly oxidation on certain coffees is what gives people the common "green pepper" note that comes up often in discussion tho'.

i'm a tad gun-shy with the concept of metallic being assumed "infection" because absent additional indicators it's simply an "off" character. & the reason i would avoid yelling the infected distinction because it is that sort of suggestion that gives brewers the cover to treat us like we may not know what we're talking about... even when an overwhelming # of us are saying the same variant the brewer discarded a ton of is also going bad in bottles in our own living rooms & kitchen tables. jmho.

 

I’m with you. I grew up in the UK in the 80’s and come from a part of Scotland with a particularly sectarian problem - where a lot of people were (are) strongly on one side or the other. How people would think this username is funny or that people with a problem are delicate liberal *********s is beyond me.

 

I would agree, but there's some justification coming along with that. If the beer tastes like sucking on a dirty penny, that beer's been contaminated. The probable causes are thiols/mercaptans that usually aren't produced/liberated by "normal" yeast strains. There are other things, however, that can cause a metallic character. Water chemistry being a primary one. An abundance of highly kilned malts in a highly attenuated beer yet another, as some people perceive astringency to be metallic. And there are certainly others that are more rare, but still do happen. From equipment issues to ingredients.

Something that I've learned in my short time here on BA is that a lot of people don't understand off flavors or aromas and there are a LOT of people claiming "infection" when the beer is not. If a flavor or aroma stands alone, it is much harder to identify than it would be if it had other co-conspirators. For instance, if a beer is metallic AND overly phenolic or if a beer is sour AND phenolic. Phenolic off-flavors in a beer that should be "clean" are dead give aways.

Add to that the fact that there probably weren't other people there to verify your "findings" and you've got a very confusing situation.

 

Care to share which ones, if you can remember? One that sticks out in my memory was the 2009 bottling of Hair of the Dog Michael. It had that lovely "sucking on a dirty penny" character that I mentioned above.

 

Thinking of American beers in particular here since you are in Penn... Samuel Adams Boston Lager is one that i've gotten it in a few times. I've drunk quite a bit of that stuff since I discovered it in the youth of my craft beer escapade and I've probably only gotten it in a fraction of a percent of the bottles. Just a slightly unpleasant flavour and certainly nothing undrinkable.

Speaking of "sucking on a dirty penny", a few years ago I got a growler of a local Brown Ale and it was metallic tasting to the point that I had one glass and dumped the rest. I went back, complained, and quit going there for a number of months. I've since got many growlers there and no metallic tastes, so they must have changed something. What exactly? I have no idea.