Bruery Reserve Society 2014 Allocations/Discussion Thread

[stakem1]

Nice of them to bury it in an email most people dont read. ******* cowards.

My initial thoughts exactly. I saw the email headline of food pairings and immediately trashed the email. The **** do I care about food pairings for beers I have no interest in buying. After I hit delete I thought...better get that out the trash and at least browse over it because im sure they snuck some other info into the email.

Saw the note about **** and just shook my head. $20 for a so called lower alcohol "BT" variation? Seems unlikely but whatever, ill take some money back every time over substitution beers. However, like someone else pointed out, my card they last had on file is no longer valid. Wonder how that will work.

 

[stakem1]

So much for all their employees swearing up and down that **** would be coming out.

So what your telling me is Bruery employees dont know ****?
It happens.

 

[Rau711]

I better spend $20 dollars somewhere so I don't have a positive balance on my card on file that I haven't used since I paid it off 9 months ago.

 

[ASUBeer]

How about we agree to disagree?

There are thousands of wineries that ship direct to any state where it is legally permitted. Lots of them are small operations. If the laws treated breweries the same as wineries, I imagine that a decent number of breweries would do the same. The fact that roughly zero breweries ship direct makes me believe that it's not legal. But I am neither a lawyer nor a brewer nor a winemaker.

Shipping beer is illegal
Shipping wine is legal (to most states)

Different laws apply to each beverage.

 

[jtmartino1]

Shipping beer is illegal
Shipping wine is legal (to most states)

Different laws apply to each beverage.

Not quite. Shipping beer is not illegal in-state, but it is against the policies of FedEx, UPS and USPS. Not sure why, when you can ship champagne (so it's obviously not a carbonation thing). Shipping across state lines is a state-by-state thing.

I will tell you that the first vendor to openly allow beer shipment for personal use would make a ton of money.

Any Bruery customer in California knows that GSO will ship beer.

 

[benbikes4beer]

Rare Barrel uses GSO too.

 

[bdogg1]

Not quite. Shipping beer is not illegal in-state, but it is against the policies of FedEx, UPS and USPS. Not sure why, when you can ship champagne (so it's obviously not a carbonation thing). Shipping across state lines is a state-by-state thing.

I will tell you that the first vendor to openly allow beer shipment for personal use would make a ton of money.

Any Bruery customer in California knows that GSO will ship beer.

I read that the USPS was looking into allowing shipment of beer. It would def give them a much needed boost if they did allow this.

 

[GhettoFabulous]

It's getting hard not to believe that high ABV is the only thing that keeps BT and its variants from being infected every year.

 

[tinypyramids1]

It's getting hard not to believe that high ABV is the only thing that keeps BT and its variants from being infected every year.

white oak sap was infected last year and that weighs in around 14%. it wouldn't surprise me if some crazy lacto strain found a way to adapt...

 

[jtmartino1]

It's getting hard not to believe that high ABV is the only thing that keeps BT and its variants from being infected every year.

I think that's exactly the reason.

Based upon talks with some brewers at Deschutes after the 2009 infection incident, there are a bunch of different ways these issues can be fixed. Flash pasteurization, filtration or UV (for the more transparent beers).

All affect flavor to some extent, but slightly-off bottles of **** are still better than no bottles.

 

[wyatt1]

I disagree. Slightly off bottles would be worse because people have such high expectations. And people love to complain.

 

[JulianB1]

Depends what's meant by "slightly off". Is there much in the way of existing rigorous analysis on the effects of pasteurization on beer flavor?

 

[jtmartino1]

I disagree. Slightly off bottles would be worse because people have such high expectations. And people love to complain.

How would people know? Because draft?

Draft is different than bottle 99% of the time.

Bruery is losing money and customers. Don't build expectations if you can't meet them.

 

[jtmartino1]

Depends what's meant by "slightly off". Is there much in the way of existing rigorous analysis on the effects of pasteurization on beer flavor?

Tons of breweries pasteurize so I don't think it matters much. There's evidence on both sides of the arguments but most brewers who give half a **** about making beer would rather pasteurize than turn out infected product.

http://www.anchorbrewing.com/blog/ask-bob-brewer-pasteurizing-craft-beer/

 

[Xul1]

Tons of breweries pasteurize so I don't think it matters much. There's evidence on both sides of the arguments but most brewers who give half a **** about making beer would rather pasteurize than turn out infected product.

http://www.anchorbrewing.com/blog/ask-bob-brewer-pasteurizing-craft-beer/

Their Christmas beer's ability to age gracefully seems to poke a hole in the idea that pasteurized beers can't age well...

 

[matedog]

Someone with more knowledge can speak more definitively on the matter, but my understanding is that pasteurization is really deleterious on aging sours due to killing the wild bacteria that really develops the beer over time. Aging quads and stouts is more about oxidation and the effect on "heat" which I don't think would be affected by pasteurization.

 

[bdogg1]

i was at the bruery a couple of weeks ago and was able to try ****. I thought a couple of the variants were pretty damn good. The regular was meh. SHame the bottles got ruined.

 

[bsc]

Someone with more knowledge can speak more definitively on the matter, but my understanding is that pasteurization is really deleterious on aging sours due to killing the wild bacteria that really develops the beer over time. Aging quads and stouts is more about oxidation and the effect on "heat" which I don't think would be affected by pasteurization.

In theory, all bugs are killed.

 

[matedog]

To take a step back, is the bigger issue:
1. People were looking forward to **** as a less sweet and boozy/more crushable BBA stout?
2. The continuing infection/cancelled beer issues?

 

[nanobrew1]

Remember when some years back they wanted to drastically change the membership by making it closed to new members (unless current ones left), making it free, no discount, first access to beers? I can definitely see the benefit to that now.

 

[bdogg1]

As an outsider looking in, I have to believe it is option 2. How many society beers is that now? As someone who is partnering on the society next year, this is not a good sign IMO.

 

[drgarage1]

As a non-renewing member, it's 2. I don't believe they will deliver the beers they promise at this point. Had they offered a big discount to renew, I might have given them another shot. Not at full price.

 

[stupac2]

To take a step back, is the bigger issue:
1. People were looking forward to **** as a less sweet and boozy/more crushable BBA stout?
2. The continuing infection/cancelled beer issues?

 

[Xul1]

Remember when some years back they wanted to drastically change the membership by making it closed to new members (unless current ones left), making it free, no discount, first access to beers? I can definitely see the benefit to that now.

I actually floated that as a concept to a couple of friends as a way for the Bruery to regain some trust. However, they managed to sell out the RS (and presumably get plenty of HS memberships) without it, so there's not much incentive on their side.

 

[jtmartino1]

Someone with more knowledge can speak more definitively on the matter, but my understanding is that pasteurization is really deleterious on aging sours due to killing the wild bacteria that really develops the beer over time. Aging quads and stouts is more about oxidation and the effect on "heat" which I don't think would be affected by pasteurization.

They wouldn't be pasteurizing the sours.

And the easiest way would be to pasteurize the bottles after capped. Most of their high-gravity beers are force-carbed anyway (as yeast is inactive at that high of ABV), so any development of the beer inside the bottle after capping would be do to residual oxidation and not yeast activity, as it is currently.

Or, they could kill the bugs before bottling.

They should've caught the **** issue since they haven't been in barrels all year, and they have had infection problems for more than a year.

 

[Josh2]

They knew that something went awry with **** long ago, whether they ever admit or not, they knew.

three? different adjunct variants of the beer released with unlimited growler fills well before the base beer was released? If you think otherwise,you're absolutely fooling yourself.

 

[StarRaptor1]

And the easiest way would be to pasteurize the bottles after capped. Most of their high-gravity beers are force-carbed anyway (as yeast is inactive at that high of ABV), so any development of the beer inside the bottle after capping would be do to residual oxidation and not yeast activity, as it is currently.

People say this all the time about forced carbed beers. Even with a high gravity yeast is still alive and active in a beer. The characteristic a beer takes on as it ages has more to do with yeast then it does oxidation, most breweries purge their bottles before filling

 

[stupac2]

People say this all the time about forced carbed beers. Even with a high gravity yeast is still alive and active in a beer. The characteristic a beer takes on as it ages has more to do with yeast then it does oxidation, most breweries purge their bottles before filling

Oxidation doesn't require molecular oxygen to happen. Budweiser has probably a million times less molecular oxygen in it than most craft beer, but it still gets oxidized.

 

[Xul1]

People say this all the time about forced carbed beers. Even with a high gravity yeast is still alive and active in a beer. The characteristic a beer takes on as it ages has more to do with yeast then it does oxidation, most breweries purge their bottles before filling

Then pasteurize the beer once it leaves barrels and has adjuncts added, re-inoculate with yeast, and bottle. I can appreciate the discussion about aging potential but if they can't even get the bottles released safely, aging potential seems pretty unimportant.

 

[Gonzoillini1]

Then pasteurize the beer once it leaves barrels and has adjuncts added, re-inoculate with yeast, and bottle. I can appreciate the discussion about aging potential but if they can't even get the bottles released safely, aging potential seems pretty unimportant.

I've always thought this would be the best idea for breweries who can afford a flash pasteurizer and are having issues getting clean beers full of weird / hard to sanitize adjuncts.

New Glarus flash pasteurizes almost everything they produce, and while it reduces the variability in some of their offerings that we like (IE aging / additional yeast activity in their wild beers) it does produce a shelf stability that I'm sure the Bruery would envy.