Emersons really let me down

[Barry]

For the first time ever, spending some hard earned on a few bottles of Emersons finest was a disappointing experience.

I had been invited to a new South African neighbours house to watch a rugby game last night, he knows I'm into my beer so I made a trip to the shore (Northcross Liqourland) to grab a few bottles of my favourite brewer's wonderful produce. Liqourland were woefully out of stock, I ended up with a 1812 IPA, a London Porter and an Old 95.

I told my neighbour I'd brought some beer for him to try, and poured a couple of glasses of the 1812. Poured cloudy. Not panicking yet I took a sip. Spritzy carbonation nearly forced it out my nose. It was like a soft drink only fizzier. I instructed my host to tip it out and did the same.

Next up, London Porter. Again the beer was too fizzy, I've had both of these are they rate among my favourites. The porter is usually silky smooth with a full body and mouthfeel. This time it was thin and fizzy, almost like coke.

The Old Ale remained. This one tasted like it should, but again was unbelievably fizzy, belgian-esque even.

I got little change from $20 for these 3 beers. My neighbour was underwhelmed to say the least (admittedly partly from my own reaction but I kept my cool so as not to overdo the situation). So I have a few questions.

1) Is there a way of mis-treating beer so that a consistently shitty condition can be obtained? Storing warm, shaken, light struck, something that would effect 3 totally different beers the same way?

2) Is it possible all 3 were infected with the same bug? Surely not.

3) Is there any recourse? Should I take this up with the brewer or with liqourland? I'm assuming someone from Emersons will read this eventually. I'd like to be recompensed, it is a true luxury for me to get $20 to spend on good beer, it's a disaster to have that beer not be all it's cracked up to be. And I'd like my neighbour to taste it as it's supposed to be rather than think I'm full of it.

Has anyone else experienced it this bad with Emersons? It's my go-to brewery for a quality drop, I've NEVER had a single bad bottle up to this point. I can't understand how all 3 could've been so terrible.

I'll say it before you do Luke, should've bought some Epic.

[Stu McKinlay]

I had a similar problem with a Taieri George the other night (and agree it tasted good, though not as good as the last few years Taieri).

I just poured it straight into glasses and lost nothing other than about a tablespon of foam. The glass gave it plenty of room to vent. Suggest people get ready to pour straight away, as it is a pretty slow eruption...

[Sparky]

Just out of interest guys......

Was the Tairei George opened
1.immediately after storage in your fridge
2.after some time sitting in ambient when removed from your fridge
3.as soon as you got home

Some times I have experienced beers errupting when I haven't opened them cold.

Have opened a couple of Taieri 07's straight from my fridge in the last few weeks, noticing a very slight lazy foam. Wasn't worried as I lost none and imbibed in what I'd describe as an enjoyable spicy beer.

[Stu McKinlay]

It was sitting in my friend's fridge, near freezing, for a couple of weeks. He'd already opened on before, as I noticed him put it in the sink before opening.

Had the latest Brewer's Reserve last night - "Falconer's Rest" - a delicious styrian-fest of a strong bitter. No relation to the TV show, apparently.

[Richard Walley]

Straight out of the fridge for me. Not sure what that means, exactly.

[Sparky]

Hi Richard

I was thinking about volumes of CO2 and the ability of beer to absorb it at different temperatures.

Some beers I've noted less lively when I've cooled them down and the glassware down.

[Kempicus]

Had the same problem when i was working at Fullers, the Organic Honeydew was gushing upon opening and the brewers put it down to a Fusarium infection in the barley. From memory they weren’t particularly surprised, I guess that’s the risk you take when brewing organic beer…obviously Taieri isn’t organic but I wonder if this is the problem?

Obviously there’s a few other reasons that beer gushes (dust particles, inadequate filtration) but I’m sceptical whether it can be put down to how well the beer is kept post-production since we receive some of the worst kept beer in the world over here, travelling halfway round the world in a red hot 40 foot container isn’t the best environment for beer but I don’t seem to have a gush problem when I open those beers!

The best advice I can give (I’ve had success with this) and it hurts me to say this but you’ve got to put the beer in the freezer, leave it for an hour or so and then pour it into a big glass and let it warm up, it seems to reduce the gush quite a bit.

[Greig McGill]

I'm late to this thread but can add some examples of similar behaviour too.

The first was with some APA from Hamilton Wine Company. This was fresh from the box it was ordered in, which in turn was straight from the brewery. A friend and myself both had several bottles, and some exhibited what my friend described as "urinal cake" aroma and the same extreme fizzing. Describing this aroma to Kieran later, he thought it sounded like wild Bret, but I've never smelled Bret like that before! Either way, only some of the bottles seemed to exhibit that behaviour, and all were from the same batch (which I didn't record, unfortunately). I took them back to HWC, who swapped them with a beer of my choice.

The second experience was with three bottles of Bookbinder from Hillcrest Fine Wines. Two were normal, but the third tasted almost geueze-like, and had the same fizzyness. I didn't return this one, as I actually enjoyed the flavour, but it certainly wasn't "as it should be". I hadn't contacted the brewery, as I thought it was probably just a one off with some dirty bottles - I couldn't think of any other reason for beers from the same batch and fresh from their box from the brewery to vary so.

It seems I wasn't alone. Chris, thanks for the response, but it seems there must be a QC issue. I've just taken a bunch of Emerson's beers overseas as representatives of "the best NZ has to offer", and I really hope they are OK. I don't want a refund or any such thing, I just want to once again be confident in what has always been a great range of beers.

Luke: there is a special hell for rickrollers, you know? ;P

[Hopfull]

Hi,

Isn't this fun !

APA - yes agree we have been puzzled at the variation amongst the batch as well. The bottling line may be have been an issue for us way back early last year when the APA was bottled. One or two filling tubes (out of six) may have been the culprit - we have hopefully nailed this with new and improved cleaning protocols and sanitisation.....We may not have been noticing the problem in the normal range of beers until releasing a beer like APA matured for some months before release - we had very warm weather here in Dunedin over that time and this may have accelerated any growth of 'undesirables'. As part of an ongoing quality assurance programme here we will continue to improve all of our processes as and when issues are identified.

I reitierate once again - please contact the brewery directly by phone or email so that we can identify and quantify the issue and respond accordingly. Batch numbers, best before dates, place of purchase etc etc all help. Forums are useful but we like to deal directly with the customer.

The Bookbinder - ah my biggest bug bear (excuse both puns). Bookie in the flagon is as you guessed it filled either on a flagon filler or on a very low grade filler. We do our best with filling these flagons as aseptically as we can but you have obviously struck a few problems - believe me you are by no means the first!
These were never intended for sales all over the country side - sitting on shelves or in fridges for sometimes weeks on end. BUUUT due to demand historically these have been sold to wholesalers under instruction that the beer is sold fresh, almost on demand, to customers. Imagine filling a rigger of your finest craft homebrew and sending it off to a friend where he leaves it for a few weeks before trying it - ouch! Thats how things are for us with Bookie in flagons - scary huh.

Selling Bookie this way goes against all Emersons is trying to achieve with its quality range of craft beer - it came about as pure demand from customers all over NZ - its sold 'under duress' with instruction that its a fresh product and we can't control what happens once its left the brewery - we do our best within the brewery to ensure a quality fill.

We're reviewing this flagon bookie thing as we speak. Does this mean we might be considering bottling Bookie ? I've asked Richard but he ignored me and appeared not to hear what I said...................

Again - contact the shop where you bought it from and get them to speak to us or you can do it directly as discussed above.

I had a bottle of pilsner from another craft brewer the other day - it reeked of DMS. I paid $7 for the bottle, drank one sip and couldnt finish it. There are so many beers out there with quality problems - as a brewer my heart sinks 80% of the time I open a bottled beer of non mainstream beer and I taste many examples of poor quality. The biggest problem is a brewer in a state of denial that anything is wrong. I gave up years ago contacting the brewer and mentioning any negative findings. I hope that Emersons being who we are, the guys on the forum have raised issues because we are supposed to be industry leaders and expect more from us - you should, and you can.

I also hope that by replying honestly and constructively I am not in that useless state of denial that many brewers get into when confronted with negative feedback.

We're not perfect........we try to get closer to that centre bullseye everyday - and maybe the day we do is the day that maybe brewing won't appeal as much - the mix of art and science and challeges we deal with make every day a good one in the brewery. Bring it on.

Cheers in Beers

Chris
Emersons

[Greig McGill]

Brilliant Chris. That's all we can expect, and I for one certainly appreciate it. I hear you on the Bookie aspect. It's my go-to party beer (along with Epic, Luke will be pleased to know) here in Hamilton, and I know that both Hamilton Wine Company and Hillcrest Fine Wines here store it very well, and really take care - going so far as to pass on the disclaimer to the consumer, and yet they are always still happy to take it back if it's off.

In future, I'll note any and all details, and contact the brewery directly.

Thanks again for the open and honest response.

[Craig]

Thanks for the open and honest response Chris.

It has always been evident you guys aspire to be market leaders with an exceptional quality product. My concern was never so much the fact there was an issue, more a case of what you were doing about it. I felt particularly agreeved by the denial more than anything as it tends to portray a message that "the customer is stupid and doesn't really know what they're talking about".

So a big thumbs up, I undoubtedly will now give Emersons another go. It will likely need to be off tap however to rebuild my confidence and ensure you've closed the QC loop on that bottling plant.

Question: Does your batch number identify the filling tube used? If this is a significant issue for you and given it is potentially tube specific, I suggest it would be nice to track it on a permemant basis (if economically achievable)...

Also, I can concur that when I did make contact to raise concerns (2+ years ago), I possibly did get a response from one of your less focused employees about to exit the company. I guess a key learning from this may be the need for you to create a process & database to log all customer feedback which is not reliant on a single individual.

I also agree you are not alone with the issues. I suggest Quality Control is in fact the biggest problem facing the craft beer movement. You do not want to turn off new prospective consumers before they get hooked. It makes it very hard to charge a premium and grow your customer base.

Thanks again for the honest response in a very public forum Chris. It shows you are committed to fixing the issue and I look forward to seeing the results.

Cheers
Craig.

[Bambule]

Hey didn't really want to have to re-enter this thread but I've been struck again. I had bought a bottle of Emersons Oatmeal Stout (best before Sep08 batch 144, purchased Moore-wilsons Masterton) as I was intending to make Beef and stout. I saw it sitting in the fridge tonight and thought damn I'm going to drink it and buy another one tomorrow (you've all been there no?) Alas, my pint glass frothed over and it had a foul aroma (wish I could be more descriptive there, might help diagnose). Oh well, at least I still have my stout for cooking.

Recently had some emersons pilsner on tap at Regional wines and spirits in welly, all good there. Something awry in the bottles, please sort it out, I miss the good times.