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Okay, so before I start I know many of you will jump all over a few aspects of this, but bear with me. My wife is recently back to beer drinking after a few pregnancies and a period of nursing, so I picked up a 6 of Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale. Here is the first spot where people will have an issue... I know it's not an IPA, and is in effect the same as most every North American Pale Lager... but moving on. Following the logic and experience of Charles Bamforth (check out his book Beer is Proof God Loves Us), even though it's not craft beer, major national breweries, in this case Labatt, care deeply about product consistency, and produce near perfect examples of their style of beer. Whatever beer snobs like you and me think about the style, and some people, SWMBO included, quite like it, and usually it is perfectly consistent.
This brings me to the issue at hand. Sitting at the supper table, my wife says, "My tastes must have changed, I'm not enjoying this." After a few questions, she said the issue was a "tang", which I initially attributed to the fact that she was drinking from a can (I know....), so I poured a portion into a clean glass for her to taste. A tiny bit better, but still no good, so I tasted it (from the glass). The beer had a very pronounced DMS flavour and slight, but definitely noticable acidity, neither typical of Keith's.
I've had mass produced beer that is skunked or stale, showing poor handling and storage, but newly bought, popular, canned beer should be reasonably fresh. This is the first time that I've encountered flaws that likely result from the brewing process or sanitation in mass produced beer. Has anyone else had similar experiences? Other than the obvious, drink homebrew instead, what should a guy do?
This brings me to the issue at hand. Sitting at the supper table, my wife says, "My tastes must have changed, I'm not enjoying this." After a few questions, she said the issue was a "tang", which I initially attributed to the fact that she was drinking from a can (I know....), so I poured a portion into a clean glass for her to taste. A tiny bit better, but still no good, so I tasted it (from the glass). The beer had a very pronounced DMS flavour and slight, but definitely noticable acidity, neither typical of Keith's.
I've had mass produced beer that is skunked or stale, showing poor handling and storage, but newly bought, popular, canned beer should be reasonably fresh. This is the first time that I've encountered flaws that likely result from the brewing process or sanitation in mass produced beer. Has anyone else had similar experiences? Other than the obvious, drink homebrew instead, what should a guy do?