Lactobacillus midichlorians
June 15, 2018 10:38 AM   Subscribe

 
A couple of thoughts. I don't practice in MA, but Chapter 93A, the state consumer protection law, is kind of a beast, and I remember the lawyers at my old firm celebrating a case where they lost the underlying issue but had gotten the 93A claim kicked out early on.

I'm wondering what the postures of the plaintiffs and their lawyers might have been in deliberating the settlement. In particular, I'm wondering if the lawyers pushed the plaintiffs not to take the settlement because it was in the lawyers' interest to hold out for a class.
posted by gauche at 11:11 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


This was such a bummer and a really big deal in my husband's circle. We were at a Widespread Panic show in Chicago the summer after this happened and my husband was wearing is BC T-shirt. A guy behind him line told him he liked his shirt and my husband went on kind of a heated rant about taking the time to track down bottles, paying for the rancid beer etc. The guy listened then handed him his card and said email me and I'll make sure you're compensated and send some swag. He was one of the head brewers. Husband emailed him when we got home and apologized for his rant. He got his money back, but knows people who were out hundreds.
posted by Bacon Bit at 11:14 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


Interesting. I somehow managed to not hear of this at all.

Kinda curious what a lacto BC beer tastes like. I enjoyed plenty of (intentionally) sour stouts back in the day.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:17 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


In my experience, not bad at all, although certainly not what you go into a BCBS looking to get
posted by beerperson at 11:24 AM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


Huh. Our our 2015 haul--the last year I stood on line overnight for BCS--has all been delicious. I don't recall hearing about this at all.
posted by crush at 11:30 AM on June 15, 2018


So here you have an item with a commodity value far outstripping its use value. Its commodification is based entirely on a sheen of "artisinal, handcrafted, traditional," etc. manufacturing processes. Objectively speaking, the ENTIRE DIFFERENCE between these higher-priced commodities and their mass-manufactured counterparts is that the industrially-produced versions deliver a more consistent end product, while the handcrafted, artisinal version allows for variation and imperfections that some consumers value. Case in point: the affected lines are the "barrel-aged" lines. As in, instead of conditioning the beer in a sterile stainless steel tank, they literally just throw it in an old wooden barrel for a while.

This is the marketing side of it.

Yet the reality is that the consumer of a luxury product is even LESS tolerant of variation and imperfection, despite paying extra to live a fantasy to the contrary. In a way, these guys spent several times over this product's material value to gamble that it would be sour, and then sued when they won that bet.

I mean, any time any consumer sues a big company, I'm rooting for the plaintiff. Judicial redistribution, why not? So I'm not defending the beer company here. I just think this whole episode is a perfect illustration of the irrationality of capitalism, and of the self-defeating futility of the "artisinal" barn-wood-and-edison-bulb strategy of commodification. It's always going to be either a lie or unprofitable.
posted by Krawczak at 11:47 AM on June 15, 2018 [10 favorites]


Objectively speaking, the ENTIRE DIFFERENCE between these higher-priced commodities and their mass-manufactured counterparts is that the industrially-produced versions deliver a more consistent end product, while the handcrafted, artisinal version allows for variation and imperfections that some consumers value. Case in point: the affected lines are the "barrel-aged" lines. As in, instead of conditioning the beer in a sterile stainless steel tank, they literally just throw it in an old wooden barrel for a while.

Bourbon County (and other barrel-aged beers) is a unique product because it's put into bourbon barrels, which impart flavors of bourbon and wood. Consistency aside, it's a very different result than you get from throwing stout into a stainless fermenter, or even a foeder (more or less a fermenter made of wood), due to the ratio between liquid and surface area of the wood. The bourbon barrels are also subjected to as little temperature control as possible, so that due to natural fluctuations of the ambient temperature, the wood grains expand and contract, allowing the liquid to breathe in and out of the wood itself, increasing the degree to which the barrel imparts flavor to the end product. I get what you're saying, but it's really not about (or predominantly about) perceived value due to artisanal crafting.
posted by beerperson at 11:54 AM on June 15, 2018 [6 favorites]


Oh don't get me wrong, I'm a beer and spirit snob, I've done some brewing myself, and I worked in premium cigars and tobacco for several years. I understand the barrel aging process completely, and am quite adept at speaking the commodification incantations to infuse additional value into luxury goods. But it's undeniable that the additional value of the product comes from the story of how the product is crafted far more than it comes from the bourbon and wood flavors the process imparts. If this beer came in a can (instead of a bottle inside an oak slide-top box) labelled "New! Bourbon and Oak flavor!" (Instead of with an unbleached cardstock tag letterpressed with a description of the barrel-aging process or whatever), it would have a lower commodity value. Likewise, a steel-aged stout with a little bourbon and oak extracts added in could absolutely reach this level of commodification and beyond, given skillful storytelling/marketing -- this happens all the time.

All that said, I'm not denying that the process produces a quantifiably different product, and one that I substantially prefer to Coors or whatever. But do take a step back and ask yourself how "barrels are also subjected to as little temperature control as possible, so that due to natural fluctuations of the ambient temperature, the wood grains expand and contract, allowing the liquid to breathe in and out of the wood itself" squares with customer expectations of consistency and absolute freedom from off-flavors or unintended micro-organisms. If they're telling the whole truth about their production process, they're virtually guaranteeing that things like this will happen occasionally.
posted by Krawczak at 12:23 PM on June 15, 2018 [4 favorites]


Wait until they start putting barrels of beer on boats and shipping them in circles around the world.

Or maybe they're already doing it?
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:27 PM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


But it's undeniable that the additional value of the product comes from the story of how the product is crafted far more than it comes from the bourbon and wood flavors the process imparts.

Uh, nope? Have you drunk a lot of casked/bourbon barrel aged beers? The flavor profile is super obvious. It's not one that I love, but I can appreciate the depth of flavor there.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:34 PM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


There are plenty of barrel-aged beers you can get without standing in line or paying $18 a bottle for, though.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:39 PM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


Have you drunk a lot of casked/bourbon barrel aged beers? The flavor profile is super obvious.

What krawczak is saying is that you could certainly add those flavors through some clever organic chemistry, which some makers are probably already doing.

There's nothing magical about letting the beer sit in a wooden barrel. The only magic is that ABInBev (cough sorry Goose Island) can charge a healthy markup for the exercise and customers will happily line up.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:45 PM on June 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


There's nothing magical about letting the beer sit in a wooden barrel. The only magic is that ABInBev (cough sorry Goose Island) can charge a healthy markup for the exercise and customers will happily line up.

It's a fairly expensive process even if nothing else.
posted by beerperson at 12:49 PM on June 15, 2018


If they're telling the whole truth about their production process, they're virtually guaranteeing that things like this will happen occasionally.

Sure, and every brewery -- even those who aren't barrel-aging or doing anything outside the realm of standard clean beer -- has to deal with infections and off-flavors. But that's why the QC process exists.

I worked at a brewery that inadvertently released a barrel-aged stout with an infection (probably pedio, although we never found out for sure), because one of the dozens of barrels got a bug in it and then when all the barrels were blended in the brite the infection spread, but the initial infection was such a small part of the initial blend that it was undetectable until the beer had been packaged and allowed to warm on shelves and initiate secondary fermentation. We even had a couple cans explode.

But this was entirely our fault because we didn't test the barrels for infection before blending (something we fixed on subsequent BA batched).

It's also an extremely expensive mistake to make. If you're laying down wort for 6-12-18 months, you're paying rent for the floorspace to hold those barrels, you're paying salaries for folks to maintain the barrels, and you've laid out expenses for the raw materials, plus the speciality equipment for barrel racking and transferring and cleaning, all well before you begin to see any return on those investments -- a year and a half, in some cases, as noted, plus the 2 weeks primary fermentation time, plus however long it takes to ship to a distributor and then get their check. Is Goose making a healthy profit on BCBS? I mean, probably, but also a lot less than you might expect given the figure on the price tag.
posted by beerperson at 1:02 PM on June 15, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm not in the industry or anything, but I figured smaller-batch limited release stuff like Bourbon County were loss leaders -- the intent isn't to make money on them (even though the price tag is quite high) but to make a big show of the long lines, to generate buzz, etc. that then sells your other mass-produced brews. (Nevermind that Goose Island could itself be a loss leader for the parent company if it had to be, which it probably doesn't.)
posted by tonycpsu at 1:12 PM on June 15, 2018


BCS is not $18 a bottle. The barleywine and Proprietors are $18 a bottle, but not the stout. (I find everything but the stout uniformly disappointing, so we never buy them.) The Cthulthu stout is even better but they don't bottle it.

Anyway. I did not see in the articles any accounting of how many bottles were off? Like I said, our stash was fine (through we still have some cellared) and none of the people I've been at launch events or tastings events with in recent years (which always have stock from prior years, so I've been to tastings with 2015 BCS several times) were talking about it. How much was tainted overall? Did I just miss it in the reporting?
posted by crush at 1:17 PM on June 15, 2018


It varies by the bottling date, so not all of it was infected. I think about half of what I have is infected bottles, (which I never got the refund for). I'm also not sure how strong the off-flavors may be, I haven't opened one of the infected bottles. From what I understand they tasted fine around the release, but started going off a short while later.
posted by borkencode at 1:30 PM on June 15, 2018


I guess this should be where I mention I have a few bottles of Bourbon County that are probably pushing 10 years old now, from before Goose Island's AB Inbev sellout. My collection used to be close to a case, but we pull one out and share (it being one of the few beers my spouse likes) every now and again. The rest should probably be drunk up relatively soon since they have a very long shelf life for beer, but it's not infinite.

Also, at the time it was more like $16 a four-pack of 12 oz bottles, and they were sold in generic glass bottles in generic cardboard yokes just like any other bottled beer, if any other bottled beer was sold in four packs rather than six packs.

Ten bucks a bottle? And the premium goes to fancy moulded bottles and bespoke wooden boxes rather than quality control? High end beer culture has gotten stupid.
posted by ardgedee at 2:32 PM on June 15, 2018


Krawczak has absolutely no idea what they are talking about and should be ignored. Why don’t they just ferment in stainless steel? Seriously? Have you had a BA Stout before?

Not all the BCBS 2015 bottles were infected, only some of the bottling dates. Sadly mine were all infected. I drain pouted them but had no problem getting a refund as part of their voluntary refund program.

BCBS is still a great BA Stout and holds up, but these days there are just so many better BA stouts it gets harder every year to go and get in line. Still worth it for things like rare or VR if you have the chance, but the regular is not worth fighting the crowds for generally.

Also, ardgedee, 10 a bottle is a steal when things like Assassin for for 50 a bottle and secondary market for 300. Also regular bcbs doesn’t come in a box - that’s just rare.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:46 PM on June 15, 2018


My brother-in-law used to work for Goose Island, so I got to visit the warehouse where they were storing all the barrels of the Bourbon County. It was this big brick space with lots of racks of barrels, pretty much like you’d expect. I got to try some special Bourbon County brewed with, among other things, guaijillo chiles, which was interesting.

My favorite thing, though, was that as a Goose Island employee, one of the perks was that he got to take home some absurd amount of beer, like a couple of cases a week? So anyway, he had lots of cases of different types of beer, and one time when I was visiting, he opened one of each of the fancy sour beers that Goose Island makes (including a couple of different years of a couple of them) and we got to taste them all. Some of them were really tasty! It’s been a couple of years, but I think that Gillian was my favorite. (But I don’t think I can get them in Alaska, even if I wanted to pay the crazy prices they’re charging—and my brother-in-law no longer works for Goose Island. I think one of the stores may get a bit of Bourbon County in occasionally, though.)
posted by leahwrenn at 8:04 PM on June 15, 2018


We've cellared some BCS every year since 2012, so I've got a couple of bottles from 2015 in the infected range, along with a few that aren't. Haven't tried any of the possibly infected ones yet, because we don't want to open one on a celebratory occasion (in case it's bad) but also don't want to open one on a random Wednesday (in case it's good). On the other hand, I suppose a good beer on a random Wednesday isn't the worst thing.

Here's a fun article where someone from the Trib tasted each of the infected styles to see if they were actually undrinkable.
posted by merriment at 6:29 AM on June 16, 2018


> ardgedee, 10 a bottle is a steal when things like Assassin for for 50 a bottle and secondary market for 300.

That's not the best counter-argument I could have expected. Unless your point is that, yes, beer culture has gotten really stupid but Goose Island has at least not bothered trying to keep up in competitive excessiveness.
posted by ardgedee at 8:19 AM on June 16, 2018


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