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.

[nzbrewer]

Here is a video response from Emerson's to Barry's post

Emersons really let me down

[Steve Baker]

Hmm, I agree with the sentiment of this video but it still leaves many unanswered questions.

[Hopfull]

Hi

There seems to be a lot of discussion about Emersons on this site and we’d like to respond in an appropriate way. Thanks for your video ventriloquism Luke but we hope the following might be a little more constructive. Being one of New Zealand’s leading craft brewers we are passionate about our beer flavour and quality. We like to think that nothing leaves our front door that we are not proud of. We are well known for stopping a beer from sale if Richard withheld his stamp of approval.

Richard does not believe in altering the natural flavours and characteristics of our bottled beer with ‘cracker’ like pasteurisation or stripping head retention and body by sterile filtration. What you get in the bottle is essentially fresh tap beer! How this is stored and handled after it has left the brewery is nine times out of ten where most of our problems have occurred in the past

A fresh bottle of Emersons Pilsener will taste identical to its tap brother – they are the same beer. With good intention we attempt to bottle a beer with as much freshness and flavour as our tap beers. Check out how many so called craft bottled beers are handled and you might be in for a surprise. Try comparing your favourite craft tap beers with their bottled versions and you’ll see what Richard is trying to avoid.

Now for the one time out of ten problems…. The rare times our customers experience any quality issues we address on a case by case basis. We apologise if at any stage those quality concerns haven’t been dealt with in a reasonable manner – lets just say like every business we have our less customer focussed employees! So please contact us directly with the issues you may have had – we need your help to identify if we are having random storage/handling issues out there or systemic production failures! The information we need to help us will be batch number, best before dates, where you purchased the beer from etc etc.

We are not perfect. We don’t know it all. Brewing is as much art as it is a science – that’s
why we love what we do.

If you don’t get an adequate answer or response that you are satisfied with contact myself or Richard directly.


Cheers in Beers

Chris O’Leary
Emerson’s Brewery
Dunners
Ph 03 4771812

[Stu McKinlay]

Chris failed to blow the Emerson's trumpet here. Perhaps he thought it was inappropriate.

I've not experienced one of these bad bottles yet (though I'm still a little sceptical on the change to NZ malt*), so perhaps I should pass on the hopeful news that not all is lost - see this post, which isn't Rick Astley, for why they have something to be satisfied about.

* Hoping they prove me wrong because I'm a keen on local production and energy reduction, where possible.

[Bambule]

Oh no, this is like a curse. I read your post yesterday Barry and felt your pain. This evening I popped down with the trouble and strife to our bar in Carterton which we are blessed with as it sells Emersons. Not thinking anything of it, as Emersons is indeed a favourite brewery of mine, I ordered a bottle of 1812 IPA. To my distress it exhibited the same symptoms that you described above. As I poured it into the glass it instantly filled with froth, the bubbles took a while to subside but the beer was fizzy beyond belief and any hope of savouring the full hoppy flavour and malty richness were gone in a rush of CO2. I sent the bottle back unfortunately and got something else (well for $9, what'ya going to do). In my haste I should have grabbed the batch number for reference. Appreciate your comments Chris, the standards are high so when something goes awry its hard not to notice.

[Stu McKinlay]

You guys are blessed to have "Lounge" in Carterton. That'd have to be one of the best small-town bars in the country. Glad it is only 500m from my folks place, as I'm over there regularly and usually very thirsty in that dry Wairarapa climate.

I'm sure if you contact the owner he'll be able to pass on the batch number / expiry date. He's a top guy.

[Bambule]

Yeah, talk about an oasis in the desert. If it was in Wellington, I'd still be a patron.

[Mark]

happened once to me with a bottle of APA from new world in palmerston north. it was cloudy, which i thought was unusual, fizzy and a bit funky tasting. i'd bought it to compare in a tasting with my own APA, suffice it to say on that occasion it lost! only happened the once though

[Ben]

Bummer about the beers Barry. Ive never had a dud Emersons but had enough dodgy microbrew to think that breweries that can't guarantee consistency shouldnt market their beer where they cant control its storage. For every punter that complains there is at least ten that just think its crap beer, or even worse that all microbrew is crap. I spent 3 months in California last year and drunk Sierra Pale ale at least 3 or 4 times a week and never had anything but fresh, hoppy goodness. Plenty of other supermarket brews I tried did have variation, including bigger ones like Anchor, so its not just here in NZ. This kind of variation has to be holding back the industry here, but im sure that the companies that lift their game will be rewarded just as they have been in the states.

[David Falconer]

I use beer kegs and hot water cylinder elements
a bit more work than using an old cylinder
a good way to go as there is a bit more peace of mind when brewing inside
have fun cheers

[Hugh Grierson]

Maybe the Emmersons had been sitting round all summer warm?
I know its not that handy but Hallertau keeps all the beers in the walk in chiller, and moves the stock fairly fast.
Also they have plenty of other options to try, sounds like you need the security of a back up for SAFA impressing.

[Richard Walley]

Ooh.. Only just noticed this thread. I bought a couple of bottles of Taieri George from Regionals, both of which erupted with dense,slow foam as soon as they were opened. The 15% of each bottle I managed to salvage after it had finished foaming all over my kitchen tasted fantastic, although I am a big fan of Belgians, and this brew tasted very Belgian. My palette isn't that refined yet, but in retrospect I'm wondering if there wasn't a hint of something a bit like brettanomyces in there. Yeast infection, anybody?