Refunds for 2015 Regular BCBS and 2015 Prop

stop it. no product recall occurred.

EXACTLY why GI should have issued a recall at the industry level (distro & possibly retailers too) on both coffee & barleywine. doing so could have at least laid groundwork towards some consistency. failing to do so, made it more convenient for all parties to be loosey-goosey on it as there is no clear direction or motivation toward a path of any *consistency*.

 

and obviously their strategy was to allow customers to interact with the brewery directly instead of getting two HUGE channels, distributors and retailers, in the middle of this mess. Unfortunately for Goose whoever they put in charge of refunds and t-shirts is not nearly as organized as everyone would expect. If you're going to have someone handle that huge responsibility they 1) need to be incredibly organized AND detailed and 2) need to be the only voice on the matter to avoid inconsistencies.

 

it isn't that i disagree, i think possibly i feel a bit stronger about their lack of practicality. to me, from an educated standpoint, both distributors and retailers remain in the middle of the mess anyway. for the naive or these apparent random alcoholics that keep pulling drive-bys, talking about : "I just drink beer & write off or don't notice & react to undrinkable, expensive beer, you should do the same" - it might be fine. the fact that Barleywine is still sitting in the highest of end stores around here, it is my opinion that by avoiding getting two HUGE channels in the middle of the mess, they risk making a bigger mess & making sure the HUGE channels are stuck in said mess. perception-wise it's not a good look.

you are spot on with - there's been missteps, lacking organization. distributors continuing to push product that is known at the very least in question, with zero disclaimer or warning the product may not be up to snuff, is not a good business model. in the end it reflects poorly on GI. if their ambitious customer satisfaction statements are to be taken remotely serious, it is their responsibility to educate distributors & ask for their cooperation. at least get barleywine off shelves, even if they want to continue to play roulette on BCBS while softly admitting the pH has feet.

 

I'm guessing they're gun shy about buying back product after the $300k fine they paid because the federal government claimed shock top lemon Shandy buybacks were an illegal consignment deal. At this point, I highly doubt any bcbs or variants still owned by goose will ever see retail.

 

can you expound on that? not trying to be a jerk, i'm sincerely unfamiliar. i'm able to understand the general concept in what you stated but i don't know any of the details & therefore am unable to determine whether it's plausible to consider it a factor in their decision(s) here. TIA

 

Opened 3 more of my remaining five bottles at homebrew club tonight and all of them were perfect. Am considering saving the other two in the fridge to enable a five year vertical at our annual stout night in December since none of my two cases of bottles have been anything less than exquisite.

 

I got mine on the north side of Indianapolis at a Whole Foods.
Bottle Date: 10-12-15
Batch #: 1122
ABV: 13.7%

It was probably the best tasting beer that I've ever had in my life, certainly no "off" flavors.

 

I take it that all of the stock of regular BCBS that showed up in the distribution channel over the past few months is stock that someone was sitting on either planning to age it and jack the prices in a few years, or simply too much stock in a few locations that was finally moved elsewhere. If this is true, then the bottling dates would still be Sept/Oct/Nov. Anyone see bottling dates past that? Bet not, so there is some risk that beer being sold now may already be bad.

 

As someone who has received a rebate or financial compensation from a brewery long before these rumblings it works.

You can't see how unethical it would bring for breweries to "take back" anything that didn't sell or was deemed off? Come on man.

 

it may be unprecedented but i bet you this example you're clinging to would FLY OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW if GI actually declared an official *PRODUCT RECALL*. what i'm getting out the comments here is an assumption of some sort of unofficial process outside of declaring a real product recall, which almost certainly would only serve to add more of the kind of inconsistency aasher spoke of above.

in more drastic terms, you're trying to sell us an idea that says if [imaginary] brewery discovered there may be salmonella in it's beer & wanted to recall suspected product, they'd be forced to instead leave contaminated product in distro & on retail shelves. i think there has to be a difference between buying back product *fit* for resale vs. buying back product unfit for consumption, destined to be discarded. i assume, if done properly, there'd be write-offs for the loss(es) as well.

 

Not around here. Purely anecdotal I know, but summer is a pretty steep decline where I live. Some bars with nicer outdoor seating options pull okay crowds during the summer, but as a whole attendance drops pretty heavily. Now... Spring/Fall? Yeah. Quite busy.

Of course, BloNo is a hodgepodge of middle aged corporate folk and college students. College kids are gone during the summer and the rest of us are boring.

 

I know you're using hypotheticals, but not realistic ones and not the situation we're in now. My statements above are the unfortunate realities of the beer business.

A better example would be the recent Corona recall with defects in glass bottles. I could be wrong and I'm on the outside looking in on this one, but as I understand it, the recalled Corona was destroyed by wholesalers and replaced by Constellation with like product. Constellation didn't "buy back" a damn thing, but replacing product easy to do when you have a commodity product like Corona Extra. Obviously BC and variants is not a commodity product AND there's no safety risk/liability with drinking infected product. So, assuming for a moment that Goose Island can legally do the same thing, where the hell are they supposed to get X,000 more cases of BC and variants?

I'm not pretending I have every answer about what Goose can/can't do, but I'm pointing out some realities that are probably being discussed at Goose and have to be addressed. What could/couldn't be done if beer bottles were filled with bleach or some supervirus that could kill the masses isn't relevant to the BC issues at hand.

 

I haven't been following this thread or the BCBS story particularly closely (my bottles have all been good so far, seem to be from a good batch, and I generally drink BCBS on tap, so I'm mostly following this out of morbid curiosity), but, and I'm asking this seriously, is there a reason to think this latest issue has to do with any of the above factors? Are you saying that the assumed mix of bourbon barrels (to satisfy increased demand in a world that's already running into bourbon supply issues) is the most likely culprit for whatever bacteria got into these bottles?

 

we can't know anything for sure. but what does seem obvious, if things like turn-around time to refill are significant, it's unlikely there is going to be consistency in the time-frames random barrels from various makers were dumped & moved through the process leading up to brewery reception.

something else we don't know. it's pretty widely assumed GI knew it had a sizable issue with the coffee variant. what we don't know is exactly what else was discarded beforehand due to "off" flavors. truth be told, if not a specific variant ingredient being at play, my suspicion of the originating source would actually be all over those 35 year old HH barrels used for Rare. they had to be pretty dry after 34+ summers. if the true source of the issue turns out to actually stem from wood harboring the contaminant, i'd think drier barrels are more susceptible than wet ones. funny thing is new money listens to & entertains nonsense like Heaven Hill's boasts of having : "The largest supply of Extra Aged whiskey on hand ". old money carries a dictionary + thesaurus & realizes that statement really reads in big bold letters: WE STILL POSSESS THE MOST SHIT WE FAILED TO SELL IN THE NORMAL TIME-FRAME WHISKEY TRADITIONALLY IS SOLD. think about it. besides none, what standard product does Heaven Hill sell that's 30 or more years of age?

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/dinin...-beer-infection-food-0622-20160622-story.html

People are still going to line up for this. I like the line about compulsive beer buyers. As a brand, I don't think they will suffer, but their silence for both Regular and Prop is deafening.

That said, I haven't had an infected regular yet and the coffee that I opened last December was very good. I plan on getting into my Prop next month just because I'd rather not hold onto it because of this.

 

My experiences have varied. The Prop I opened was fine, just sweet as expected (2 months ago). Now the regular that I opened last Saturday and last night have started to develop flavors that were not there when it was fresh. Disappointing. It was still drinkable, but I know in time they're gonners.

 

Just popped one with the mark: 23oct15 1625.
Tasting exquisite. Nothing bad at all. I'm glad because I have 6 more from the same batch. Was gonna pop a 14 but I'm glad I popped this.

 

I have an Oct 2 and a Sept 22 bottle. Going to open the Oct 2 bottle first. The last bottle I had was good...but seemed off. May have been a Oct 2. All my others are Sept 22.

 

Oct 9 15 1134 is good, bourbon has settled down but otherwise fine. Acquired in Midwest Indiana.

 

Regular /barleywine/ regular
All sour cherry disasters
Posting the dates for reference