O'so Barrel Aged Night Train

You're S.O.L. There's no helping these beers at this point. If you plan on going to O'so on the 23rd, you can swap them for other beers or try and get your $ back.

 

They just announced that they won't be releasing the Coconut NT or BA Distraction on the 23rd either. They've really messed this one up pretty good.

 

Perhaps they should consider waiting until the beers are completely ready before planning a release party for them. I just hope these beers don't go the way of the previous releases, with no carbonation developing and possible infection. Time will tell.

 

Better that they hold onto the product to make sure they're carbonated or never release them, than to blatantly release them into the wild and damage their reputation further. I applaud them for their decision and genuinely hope they get their issues all figured out.

 

Well this is disappointing. Won't be able to make ti to the brewery, so I guess I'll have to figure something else out.

 

I don't have a problem with them holding them. But they're still having this party having already cancelled the LAST release party when they weren't ready a month ago, and they coincided the Funk Factory release with theirs and if you don't show up for them you're out all the money you prepaid for them. So the 5 beer release party became a 2 beer release party that you basically HAVE to attend (FF decided not to release one of theirs either.) It's just a mess.

They messed up pretty bad the last time, and they've had to postpone 2 releases, something tells me it's either bad, or they just don't know how to handle releases.

 

This sucks but at least I can cut my losses and return the 9 bottles sitting in the cellar for cash.

2/8 so far isn't making be feel overly confident about their future releases.

 

If this holds, whenever they release a new bottle you'll know this is what they intended it to be. Or if not, we can finally write them off altogether... like I've stated previously, 2 strikes so far (at least for me). I'm trying to be lenient towards local brewers, especially one of O'so's potential, but there's only so much I am willing to accept. I recognize that my opinion isn't all that important to anyone but me, though.. and that's exactly what it is. Cheers

 

I won't write them off entirely as I love std Night Train, but the hell if I'm going to piss away 3-4 hours of driving for a beer that's not worth drinking. At this point, after I get my FF bottles and return the O'So I'm sitting on, I'm not bothering with future releases unless they hit the local shelf or they prove beyond any doubt that they have their shit together.

 

Last time they released it, and they got killed for it by the majority when they had the carb issue. They are doing their best to make this right by offering full refunds. Now with this batch they are not sure of it so rightly erring on the side of caution and canceling the release. Which now they are also taking heat for. It's a relatively new barrel aging program and they are taking some lumps getting it going. I'm guessing they'll get it ironed out. If you aren't confident in them don't go buy crap loads of bottles of their bb stuff. It's your $, spend it as you wish. But some of the replies on here make it sound like o'so just doesn't care or is doing it just to spite people. Obviously not the case. I applaud them at least trying new things.

 

So what if I opened a bottle that was bad? Are they refunding those? Probably not, I should have saved the bottle

 

You and me both, chief. I think the difference is that their approach with these new bottles is what I would prefer they had taken with the last release. As it is, I'll be up there anyway for CW17 and that's well-worth it in of itself. Now, going up for the March release- I am pretty sure I won't be doing that just for unproven bottles, but if history is any indicator, bottles will hit Madison. So I'm not too worried about it.

 

Glad I didn't spring for 2 nights in Stevens Point...

 

SOL. I had two bottles I opened.

 

Totally SOL. I only opened 2 bottles and they were both flat and one was infected. Not even worth testing the others.

 

Opened the second of the two bottles I bought for myself, flat and infected. Dunno what I was thinking, hoping it'd be ok.

 

I've opened several bottles of the night train variants and haven't had a single one that I felt was infected. The carbonation was null, but the flavors and body were excellent.

If you want to try to re-carbonate them, you could buy some Fizz Drops from a homebrew store, put 2 in a bottle and recap it. I have a few bottles left and I think that's what I'm going to try.

 

You're lucky. The BBNT had no tartness to it? I would have thought it was the Blackberry had I not known better.

 

Nope, nothing tart. Maybe a little bit of sweetness that hung around due to the early death of the yeast. There's definitely some dissatisfaction with drinking a flat ass beer and having those raw flavors exposed, which would otherwise be "masked" by carbonation. Being able to taste all the raw barrel flavors may be off-putting to some people. But yeah I'll chalk myself up as being lucky.