Would you keep drinking this?

Can say I'm genuinely surprised I got this out of a bottle of Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA tonight:



The taste is OK, but the smell gives off a definite "sterile" flavor, not Band-Aid or latex-like, but it just smells chemically-clean. Whatever the blobs are, they're staying put in the beer itself (i.e. looking like particles stuck in a blob of Jell-O). Weird.

99% sure you are drinking yeast. Good job!

Doubt it...I've had 3 other Emperials so far and none have had either the sterile smell or the blobs floating about. And to have that amount of yeast in a commercial beer is close to being unacceptable for public consumption (in my opinion).

The answer to your question is no. Take it back to the store you bought it in.

Yep...got a low-level stomachache now...almost certain it was infected at this point. Sent off an email to Stone with that pic, so we'll see.

scrambledegg81 said:

Doubt it...I've had 3 other Emperials so far and none have had either the sterile smell or the blobs floating about. And to have that amount of yeast in a commercial beer is close to being unacceptable for public consumption (in my opinion).

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Agreed...You payed for better. Let us know what they do.

Whoa, that is really odd. Yesterday I drank my second bottle of 10.10.10 Vertical Epic (both were purchased at the same time) and it was insanely hazy and had what looked like yeast in it. It also tasted much yeastier. I remembered the first bottle I had being perfectly clear and having less of a yeast taste, so it was weird to me since I had never heard of Stone doing a bottle conditioned beer. Now I come on here and see this.

Luckily I did not get a stomach ache, but I considered sending them an e-mail about it. Unfortunately I did not take pics.

Your retailer should refund you, not stone.

Didn't ask for a refund from Stone-already got one from the store I bought it at & simply told Stone about it. Turns out that the 5 bottles left at the store also had the same sediment, and the manager also noticed the off-smell after he cracked a bottle open. :/

Makes you wonder how long they have been sitting in the store?
But then again it is a imperial so kinda hard for a store to mess it up unless the beer has had radical temp swings.

Curious to see what stone says......

subscribing - let us know what stone said!

Bottles were marked June 2010, and from what I know, that was the only running of the 14th Anniversary. Still no word, but it is a Monday...

Haven't forgotten about this, but as of today, still no word from Stone.

Hmm, I wonder if they are going to reply...Its been what 2 weeks?

scrambledegg81 said:

Can say I'm genuinely surprised I got this out of a bottle of Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA tonight:

The taste is OK, but the smell gives off a definite "sterile" flavor, not Band-Aid or latex-like, but it just smells chemically-clean. Whatever the blobs are, they're staying put in the beer itself (i.e. looking like particles stuck in a blob of Jell-O). Weird.

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It would have to taste better than OK for me too drink it. But then I've had some really good home brews that looked as bad or worse. Stone should be ashamed.

I just got this response about my 10.10.10 that looked similar to this beer.

Dear Sam:
Thank you for the note.


Did you buy both bottles at the same location, and after you bought them were they treated the same?

Not sure what is going on here.
Our special release beers are bottle condition, so some haze is normal, but floaties and really heavy haze is not what we want.

Thanks for the note, we’ll check out our museum holdback samples of the Epic.

Cheers,
Mitch

Mitch Steele
Head Brewer
Stone Brewing Co.

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Very cool of Mitch to respond himself.

Here's mine, which I also got today:

Thanks for the note.



This year’s Anniversary Ale was brewed with 100% British malt with a very high protein content. That, coupled with the really high hopping rates, led to a formation of a really intense chill haze that didn’t get removed by our normal filtration procedures. We then bottle conditioned the beer with actively fermenting wort, so I honestly believe that what we are seeing here is yeast/protein precipitation. We’ve seen it in all of our bottling runs of this beer, and has time has gone on, the particulates are getting larger.



What we haven’t seen yet is any evidence of bacterial infection, so I hesitate to think that your bottle was infected. But we’ll check it again-we have bottles held back for just such a purpose.

I’m sorry you didn’t like the beer.



Thanks again for writing,

Cheers,

Mitch





Mitch Steele

Head Brewer

Stone Brewing Co.

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Hmmm. I bought a sixer of Long Trail IPA once. The beer was very cloudy and had large amounts of sediment in it. It was also completely flat. To get carbonation, I tried turning the bottle upside down and shaking it out, but that didn't work either. I haven't bought a Long Trail product since because of that, even though I'm pretty sure I just got a bad six pack.

That's all you got? An "I'm Sorry" ?? ... That is a bummer.

That reminds me of the saying:
Customer - "There is a fly in my soup."
Waiter - "Don't worry, it wont drink much."

Mitch Steele is on my **** list. I'll let him know that if I ever meet him in a dark alley.

very weak response

I had a very similar issue with a sixer of Rogue Mocha Porter a few years ago. I shot them an email and they responded that the floaties that I got in the beer were likely due to poor storage conditions (I had purchased the beer several times before and never had the issue). The email form required that I submit my contact information. A week later, I received three bombers and this in the mail:



The best part was the plethora of "contents not for consumption" stickers encasing the entire box. Hats off to these guys for making a right even though it wasn't technically their fault. I just emailed them curious about what the floaties were and if they'd have an effect on the beer outside of clarity and appearance.

That's an appropriate response, not Stone's.

Yeah I've gotta agree it's pretty weak on Stone's part. The beer was obviously not handled properly and instead of making it right they pretty much just said "what are you talking about? The beer is supposed to be like that!"

I had the 10.10.10 and enjoyed it. One of the parts I remember about it was how clear it really was :-/

Don't really want to support stone much after seeing how this turned out.
Being a large brewery they could have afforded to make a coupon or stickers or even send beer with a apology.

I work in retail, And even if it costs the business a little bit of cash to make a customer happy, Most likely they will be returning knowing that the business cares and wanted to make it right. Sometimes its hard when you know the customer is bringing back a product you know without a doubt wasn't sold that way...but giving them a new product makes them happy and they come back and do more shopping.

Yeah, thats a BS response... pre much in line with Danstars response the ever-growing notty problem they have. i would send a nasty note back. good luck whatever you do.

I would.

I would.

Mitch is getting to big for his britches ....next thing you know he'll have a Discovery Channel series!

winstonofbeer said:

Don't really want to support stone much after seeing how this turned out. Being a large brewery they could have afforded to make a coupon or stickers or even send beer with a apology.

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He may have made the mistake of responding to the original letter as he would to another brewer instead of to a pissed off consumer.

Personally I don't subscribe to the "something's wrong so someone owes me free stuff" theory of microbrew purchase - the risk of getting an off bottle sorta goes with the territory. There are plenty of huge breweries with excellent quality control; choosing to not go that route has its own risks (and rewards.)

Well, I'm a rabid Stone fan, and I can understand how, with larger production schedules on the line, that something like this might get overlooked (especially with a one-off anniversary batch like this).

At the same time, I'm really surprised there wasn't more emphasis on the fact that something was obviously wrong with the recipe itself, the fact that the filtration issue was known and not addressed, and whether or not more people have notified them about the heavy protein issue. I'm a bit peeved at the "sorry you didn't like the beer" comment as well. I explained in my email that I've been a brewer for nearing 2 years, I've seen infections, yeast issues and protein breaks that would choke a horse, and it seems like the easiest shrug-off for Mitch just to say that I didn't like it.

It's definitely a less than optimal response. The response from Rogue to snowveil is IMO awesome, but above and beyond. The response from Stone leaves wanting. Somewhere in the middle would be great. The response is from the head brewer, though, not from some PR guy. If you had received a response from marketing or PR or something, I'm sure it would have looked a lot different, and contained less technical content.

But really, it sounds like he responded brewer to brewer about exactly what he thought was happening. I think maybe he thought you would understand that stuff like this can happen, especially on a one-off run, and it sounds like you do. He did say he would look into it, so maybe something will come from that?

I have to agree about the "sorry you didn't like the beer" comment, though. That struck me the same way it did you. He admits to a few problems, and then with that comment, makes it sound like they aren't problems at all, and that the real problem is you and your taste. What that should have read, at the very least, is more like "sorry about the problems we are having with this beer". He either meant it in the best way (probably the case), or maybe he thinks that even with the sediment and haze, that it doesn't affect the flavor at all? Is it possible that this is true, and that the chemical smell isn't directly related the sediment/haze? (I'm not sure, just wondering).

billvon said:

Personally I don't subscribe to the "something's wrong so someone owes me free stuff" theory of microbrew purchase - the risk of getting an off bottle sorta goes with the territory. There are plenty of huge breweries with excellent quality control; choosing to not go that route has its own risks (and rewards.)

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I am not saying if i someday come across a bad beer, Not personal taste bad, but quality bad. That i am going to be looking for a free handout.

What i am getting at, In the retail store that i work at, We want the customer to be happy and satisfied. If it costs the business a little bit of cash to do so...Fine.
But if that customer is happy, They will hopefully return to buy more goods from us and hopefully they will tell there freinds the problem they had with a product, and we made it right.

I guess what i am trying to get at here, A happy customer is always the best business practice any company can do, Even if it costs you a little bit of $$$

IF the brewer would have said, I am sorry for the quality control issue we had a filtering issue that day and it looks like it might be starting to show.
Is there anything i can do to make it right with you? I know you spent some cash to buy that bottle, and its not where it should have been in quality.


Something like that would have made a customer happy, But give the customer the option asking for a coupon or something....

Bad reputation can spread..... Keeping a good reputation at times is not easy, But worth it in the long run.

I noticed there was so much space between the lines so I figured there must be something written there.
So I rubbed on the screen a-little and revealed this...

Mitch Steele said:

Thanks again for writing,
thanks for wasting my time ******'
Cheers,
Sukit Huck Fead
Mitch
Too important to care :

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Brewdouche-RuBrew said:

I noticed there was so much space between the lines so I figured there must be something written there.
So I rubbed on the screen a-little and revealed this...

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That's overly cynical. PR is not easy, and if he's not good at it that certainly doesn't make him a dickwad inherently. The personal response was a nice gesture, and he probably thought it would mean a lot to a fellow brewer, even though it was ultimately ill advised.

I understand that things like this happen, even with big breweries, but have to agree that it was a weak response.

I had a problem with a bottle of Elysian ESB, and emailed them some photos of it and where I purchased it as well. Lots of sediment and very carbonated, I did not finish it. It was not b/c I was mad about the product, more of helping out a fellow/local brewer.

And they offered to replace my bottle. But being that I am only 3 hours from their pub, I asked if instead I could grab a pint when I am in the area. So they sent me a gift card, for 20 or 25 bucks ! Very cool of them. I only wanted one free pint.

I bought a bottle of Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA and mine looked exactly the same as your picture. I told the guy at the beer store about it and he said that the one he drank didn't look like that. He said that the one I bought must have been near the end of the bottling line.