Recently I bought some mcgargles up and the first two were nice, but the second two were after getting oxidised. I sent off an email to mcgargles and they apologised and sent me a free slab you say sorry, Alan was really nice to deal with. But now I've just opened up a oharas double up and it tastea like it's been oxidised. Is this something I should always be cautious of when buying craft beer. What do you do when something similar happens you, do you get onto the brewer like I did or just throw it away?
Email O'Haras and finger crossed you'll get another slab of free beer >:D
What do I do when that happens to me.. ? hmm? down the drain and don't buy it any more.
Quote from: alealex on October 18, 2014, 08:08:57 PM
Email O'Haras and finger crossed you'll get another slab of free beer >:D
What do I do when that happens to me.. ? hmm? down the drain and don't buy it any more.
That happened me before with an O'Haras as well, but it was full on infected (smelt like fish!), all the more surprising as it was an imperial stout, and a special brew for their tenth anniversary.
Quote from: cruiscinlan on October 19, 2014, 02:25:43 AM
Quote from: alealex on October 18, 2014, 08:08:57 PM
Email O'Haras and finger crossed you'll get another slab of free beer >:D
What do I do when that happens to me.. ? hmm? down the drain and don't buy it any more.
That happened me before with an O'Haras as well, but it was full on infected (smelt like fish!), all the more surprising as it was an imperial stout, and a special brew for their tenth anniversary.
I had about 10 bottles of that stuff and it was superb
Quote from: cruiscinlan on October 19, 2014, 02:25:43 AM
Quote from: alealex on October 18, 2014, 08:08:57 PM
Email O'Haras and finger crossed you'll get another slab of free beer >:D
What do I do when that happens to me.. ? hmm? down the drain and don't buy it any more.
That happened me before with an O'Haras as well, but it was full on infected (smelt like fish!), all the more surprising as it was an imperial stout, and a special brew for their tenth anniversary.
Was that in the big swing top bottle? Cos I'll never buy one of them off O'Haras again after getting one where the top wasn't properly sealed and the beer was pretty oxidised. With the prices of those beers I was really pissed off.
Getting infected pint of Oharas in Rds last year was worse than getting oxidised of special in d shop.
Quote from: Qs on October 19, 2014, 10:42:31 AM
Quote from: cruiscinlan on October 19, 2014, 02:25:43 AM
Quote from: alealex on October 18, 2014, 08:08:57 PM
Email O'Haras and finger crossed you'll get another slab of free beer >:D
What do I do when that happens to me.. ? hmm? down the drain and don't buy it any more.
That happened me before with an O'Haras as well, but it was full on infected (smelt like fish!), all the more surprising as it was an imperial stout, and a special brew for their tenth anniversary.
Was that in the big swing top bottle? Cos I'll never buy one of them off O'Haras again after getting one where the top wasn't properly sealed and the beer was pretty oxidised. With the prices of those beers I was really pissed off.
I got five empty bottles from one of their barrel aged beers (barley wine I think). I found the swing tops on them don't achieve a very good seal so I replaced them with swing tops from chipped or broken bottles. It's a pity as they are class bottles other than that.
Shanna
I've used the bottle myself and its been fine. They just had the red rubber lad arseways on it.
Speaking as someone with experience of this from both sides, it's very helpful, if you do have an issue with a beer, to include as much identifying information as possible about the beer (e.g. best before date, batch number if it's visible, where you had it, whether it was draught or bottled etc). Without that information, there's pretty much nothing a brewery can do about it. There will very likely be thousands of bottles in circulation belonging to different batches, that will have been made with malt/hops etc from different lot numbers, fermented separately etc. The brewery might have been playing around with things like filter size and disposition or indeed being doing any number of things that could have had an impact on the beer you got. The first step to getting quality issues sorted is always find out what the problem is. If it is oxidation, there's a reasonable chance it was a capping issue, potentially affecting individual bottles, rather than whole batches (obviously better from the brewery's perspective).
Bottom line: it's good to know if you come across quality issues, but not if you can't supply enough information for the brewery to do anything about it.
I'd have thought the onus would have been on a commercial enterprise to manage its own quality control, rather than the consumer.
Quote from: mr hoppy on October 26, 2014, 04:45:38 PM
I'd have thought the onus would have been on a commercial enterprise to manage its own quality control, rather than the consumer.
And a good commercial enterprise will take consumer feedback, investigate it & correct it or put a plan in place to implement a change.
They value this feedback as they understand it strengthens their business.
The poor breweries are the ones that ignore valid consumer feedback or use the 'that's the way it's supposed to be' attitude.
You don't really have to worry about those ones, they generally don't last.
At the end of the day consumers by and large will take the attitude that it's not their problem, if a producer can't get it right without their input they'll buy from someone who will. It's fine to take feedback on board but I'd have thought a good business would have it's own internal quality/feedback mechanisms rather than relying on consumer feedback alone.
Quote from: mr hoppy on October 26, 2014, 04:45:38 PM
I'd have thought the onus would have been on a commercial enterprise to manage its own quality control, rather than the consumer.
Of course it is. And the consumer doesn't have to leave any feedback. But if the customer does leave feedback, it's not especially helpful if the brewer can't identify which beer was the problem. Presumably you want to help the brewery when you leave feedback, right? Why else would you bother.
Just remembered I bought both from the Tesco in Douglas, I'll have to avoid there for beer in future. They mustn't be taking care of them properly.
Had a delivery come into the shop a few months back. In one of the slabs of Headless Dog one bottle didn't have a cap. There was no sign of one anywhere so I could only assume it was shipped this way. The most surprising thing was though, that not one drop had spilled. I was working so I had to pour it down the drain. Smelled amazing and broke my heart a little to waste it :(
Very unlikely it had anything to do with Tesco, if anything they champion the consumer by demanding freshest beer from suppliers.
Quote from: Sorcerers Apprentice on October 29, 2014, 08:22:27 AM
Very unlikely it had anything to do with Tesco, if anything they champion the consumer by demanding freshest beer from suppliers.
And then leave them on a shelf at room temp after storing them in a non-refrigerated warehouse. I'll always avoid buying beers that are anyway hoppy from Tesco, have had too many bad experiences with bad beer there.
It's a case of shooting the messenger, properly brewed/packaged beer will be able to stand up to being stored at warehouse temperatures. Extra hops were originally added to beer to protect the beer on route to India, Jamaica etc all a lot warmer than Tesco
To be fair the beer that was shipped to India was hugely altered by the temps and travel.
IMO the Tesco thing isn't an excuse though. If Tesco stores your beer in a way that makes it taste less than its designed to then don't sell it to them. Or if you want to take their money accept its your choice when people complain about the taste of your beer.
That or work on reducing dissolved oxygen from your process, and thereby increase the stability and shelf life of your beer
All true and fair points, but even bottles Fullers India Pale Ale from Tesco is heavily oxidized when I get it there. Same for Proper Job. I take your point, but there is also an onus on the reseller to ensure proper storage of their produce. Also it shows a huge disrespect to beer as a product I think, they take care of the heads of lettuce and that's much more fragile a product!
A lesson for all of us, look at the back label for the best before date as well as looking at the fancy front label :-)
Budweiser to their credit are still the only ones with a born on date.... And before everyone jumps on me I know, not without reason, but it would be good to see others follow suit, regardless who makes it fresher is better!!
Quote from: Sorcerers Apprentice on October 30, 2014, 11:17:07 AM
A lesson for all of us, look at the back label for the best before date as well as looking at the fancy front label :-)
Budweiser to their credit are still the only ones with a born on date.... And before everyone jumps on me I know, not without reason, but it would be good to see others follow suit, regardless who makes it fresher is better!!
I think it was Augustus Busch that cryogenically froze bottles of bud to see how the beer changed over the years. He was horrified at the results. They had dumbed down the beer hugely over the years. They were mad for freshness and were at the packaging forefront in the states back in the day.
I contacted a brewery about a bad bottle I had and they were swift to act and went to the shop where I bought it to investigate. It didn't help that the shop had most of their beer on shelves in the window in the middle of summer basically cooking. There is only so much breweries can do at times.
Quote from: Sorcerers Apprentice on October 30, 2014, 11:17:07 AM
A lesson for all of us, look at the back label for the best before date as well as looking at the fancy front label :-)
Budweiser to their credit are still the only ones with a born on date.... And before everyone jumps on me I know, not without reason, but it would be good to see others follow suit, regardless who makes it fresher is better!!
127% agree!! Anybody read Bitter Brew?
Some American imports have a bottled on date.
Does anyone know how long the Irish breweries give their beer for the best before?
Usually 180 days
Quote from: delzep on October 19, 2014, 05:27:00 AM
I had about 10 bottles of that stuff and it was superb
All the ones I had of it before then were lovely as well.