Refunds for 2015 Regular BCBS and 2015 Prop

No one is making you read this thread. People are upset because GI released (and profited from) a flawed product. They lied about it, ignored the issue and then tried to cover it up and suppress talk of it.

 

Again, I see numerous people on here and on Goose Island's social media page applauding the way they have handled it and saying things like "handled as well as it possibly could have been" and I just don't get it. If you think that Goose Island has done agodana job at handling then you have very low standards in regard to customer service. This hasn't been well handled at all. You could argue that the Coffee and Barleywine was handled well (but those people still waiting in refunds or that got checks for the wrong amount or the wrong name or wrong shirt size might disagree. I think an argument could be made that they weren't very timely in their reaction for Coffee and Barleywine but I'm sure all the GI apologists would jump all over me pointing out the size of the release and sheer logistics of so many refunds. But you can't say that their handling of Prop and regular has been anything but abysmal. Months of denying there is an issue, telling people there is no issue and their brewers have checked and detected no off flavors or pH issues (which we now know was a lie since they admitted they started getting reports about Prop and regular right after confirming the issue with BW and coffee), ignoring emails and hanging up on phone calls, deleting comments on Facebook and reporting posts in an attempt to suppress talk of it. I don't consider any of those as "handling it the best way possible"

And now they give a quasi admittance of the issue and tell people to drink the beers as soon as possible and offer no refund or recompensation (yet) even though it has been 5 months since they were made aware of the issue. I know a lot of you will say it's just beer or that's the risk you take with BA beers or aging beer...but this is not an issue that came from barrel aging and these beers were not "aged" they were still within their "shelf life" (6 months is the expectation of shelf stability for stout) when the infection arose. It's an issue of a flawed product out out in the marketplace. If it was a car they would have issued a recall. If it was a cellphone or computer there would have been a software update. And if it was another brewery, they would have stood behind their product and stepped up and taken care of their customers. Like Funky Buddha did, like Peg's/Cycle, like AB has done numerous times when they've recieved reports of issues with Budweiser (trust me I worked for a restaurant, I've gotten reimbursed for bud products that were "bad")

 

In some strange way, tired of pissing and moaning but listening to the cry babies whine has been a little fun.

 

Great post/experiment. Thanks.

As a side, were there riots and refunds for that "infection"--just curious?

 

Then you should head over to the South-Atlantic forum and check out the Wakefield threads. This is nothing compared tho their unending anger

 

Thanks for the kind words.

Nope. No riots! Here's a link from another thread, which includes the response from the brewery: 2014 BBT Infected?

 

Wait, so I should age all my beer at 90 degrees?

 

And shake it. Shake it good.

 

Why not continue the great experiment?

 

If you can point me in the direction of any other brewery that has dealt with an infection issue this large I'd be happy to see how it was handled better. Again, ya, they screwed up, but has anything like this ever happened on this scale? Like someone else in this thread pointed out many many other breweries will use this as an example of how to handle the issue, which is a good thing.

 

^^^ I don't think they screwed up , just barreling programs pose many potential problems. The only way they screwed up is if they knowingly released a bad product.

 

I for one am not mad and couldn't care less if they offer a refund program for regular. Sure it sucks they're having sporadic issues with batches. I just look at it as i bought a bunch of beer that i didn't like. Hopefully this year's will be better and at least the bottles i had fresh were decent plus i have 2014 left to hold me over

 

I've been criticized for months for making this same statement. Starting to think that I am the crazy one.

 

I have followed the infection threads on here. I have not seen this at all. Post links to these posts.

I'm all practicality this is pretty much impossible.

 

But you did but a beer you like. AB/InBev screwed it up.

 

It's true that no other brewery has dealt with it on this large of a scale...but that's because there are really no other breweries in the same situation as Goose Island. They're technically not craft any more and the purchase by AB InBev resulted in the brewing of their core beers (like Honker and 312) being outsourced to AB facilities and the GI facility able to focus on expanding the BCBS (and sister) line. So they've expanded so rapidly and much that they have put themselves in a situation that is unlike most other breweries. Other craft breweries aren't putting out one time a year releases at anywhere near the bottle count if BCBS, and any other beers that approach BCBS bottle counts (either craft or macro) are being produced year round in multiple batches instead of all at once so it wouldn't be possible to have an issue of this scale.

That being said, I don't think looking at this as an issue of scale is that important. Yes, we are talking about a massive amount of bottles, but we are also talking about a brewery that is producing a lot more barrels of beer than the vast majority of craft breweries. And if you want to talk about how a brewery has handled a situation correctly that has a similar fact pattern...look at how the Bruery handled their infection issues in 2013. They had 5 different beers (white chocolate, ebony & oak, cacao it, autumn maple, and a other one) that had reported infection issues (stemming from the fact that they were at that time bottling both clean beers and sours using the same bottling line). They had diverse issues with infection across a numbers of beers including situations whip here there were reports of souring that they couldn't replicate in their samples. They responded by quickly (talking weeks not months) pulling the beers from sale and offering refunds. I think how they handled it is a good example of what breweries should do and it's especially relatable because they had multiple beers pop up with issues at different times and with different results which is similar to what we are seeing with Goose Island with Coffee being reported infected first, then Barleywine, then Prop, then GI issuing refunds for BW and Coffee, first reports of regular being infected right around the time they opened up refunds, months later them admitting there are "issues" with regular amd Prop, and now the first reports of Regal being infected.

People keep saying this thing about the risks of barrel aging but this is a issue of infection with the packaging/bottling line and not the barrels. It could have just as easily affected a non-BA beer. If this was an issue with the barrel aging "program" that the kegs of BCBW and Coffee would have been effected as well.

 

I get that but I mean it wasnt like they just said F it lets make some bad batches or lets bottle this mess. Shit happens sometimes. Sure it sucks but I dont feel the the need to go all I want to talk to the manager and bitch about not receiving compensation for it.

 

Ok, so...they responded to it the best they could in their situation which no other brewery has ever faced. Thank you.

 

Nope. I refuse to believe that ignoring/denying an issue, having your customer service reps perpetuate a lie about nothing being wrong, and attempting to suppress/cover up reports of the issue is "the best they could do"

And again...numerous other breweries have faced this situation and handled it better. Just because we are talking more bottles doesn't mean the handling of the issue has to change. And I don't mean whether or not you issue refunds and how...I mean being open and honest. If GI had admitted there was a problem with regular and Prop right off the bat (back when they had started doing refunds for BW and Coffee) and said they needed more time to figure out what was going on adm what they were going to do about...then I think people would be more understanding. I know I would. It's the fact they had heard the reports and knew there was an issue and used denial and silence has the means to buy themselves more time.

 

I have to agree with both of these. There is so much of this beer bought outside of this community, and they were probably not aware of the refund program. Hell even users here, regular users, ignored or didn't see these threads and were up in arms when they missed out. That said if anyone in this community reached out for a refund and didn't have the product, well that is just wrong and karma is a bitch, it will catch up with you one day.