I bought a six pack a few weeks ago. The first one tasted much like years past - licorice, chocolate, coffee, etc. I cracked one last night and it smelled like over-ripe fruit and tasted slightly sour. I'm guessing it was infected. Anyone else have this problem this year?
Had one just after bottles hit the shelves and felt this year's was a far cry form years' past, but I didn't feel it was infected. Plucked a 2014 and 2013 for comparison and they were consistently and similarly good, like I remembered. Opened another 2015 last night and thought it was actually a little better than the first several time I tried it, so my plan was to maybe sit on this year's for a while. I've shared a 2015 and 2014 with three friends and, while they agree that previous iterations are markedly better than this year's, no one mentioned infection.
I've had two bottles from the '15 batch. It seemed a little thin and lacked some of the roastiness from years prior IMO. Seemed like it overattenuated or they changed the mash temperature. But there was nothing to suggest infection that I noticed.
It might not be a bad idea to contact Troegs and let them know about your experience. Im sure they would want to know about the potential issue and look into it and remove product from their shelves (assuming they are still selling it) if there is a problem. A friend gave me a bottle a couple weeks back and I thought it was fantastic. Much better than my experience with prior batches. I thought prior batches of impending descent were almost more boozy black ipa than imperial stout. This bottle I recently tried was rich, delicious roasty chocolate and I considered going to buy a case of it, I enjoyed it that much.
