Note: I’ve since written a follow up post, check it out here.
This past summer Russell Brewing sponsored the World Ultimate Frisbee Championship held in Vancouver. A friend involved in the tournament let me know that Russell was selling leftover Russell Cream Ale at a cut rate price. I enjoyed a Russell Cream Ale every now and then and so did some of my friends, so I bought five flats of it. I appropriated these flats of beer to myself, Erik, my soccer team, and some other friends. No sooner did we get into the beer, we noticed that it had an odd sour taste. It had gone bad and was virtually undrinkable. Understandably so, my friends, soccer team, and Erik were none too pleased with me.
In one fell swoop, I had turned twenty of my fellows into Russell Cream Ale haters. That did not sit well with me and I wanted to give Russell a chance to redeem themselves. I emailed them to let them know what happened and to ask them if an exchange of my skunky beer for their fresh beer could be arranged. This is what I received back from Russell:
Once in a long while, our cans of beer can go sour. This can be for a number of reasons.
One is the improper storage of the beer. We don’t pasteurize our beer or use preservatives, so the beer is more affected by temperature changes. However, this also means our beer has the best possible flavour.
Regardless, I’m sure we can work something out.
I thought that was pretty cool of them to get back to me so soon. I emailed them back, a few times actually, but never heard anything again. I was pretty choked by that and have since not purchased any Russell products. Neither have any of my friends involved, as far as I know. I don’t really have a problem with Russell’s beer (save their lemon ale, not my bag), just a sour taste in my mouth, literally and figuratively.
What I ended up doing was taking the beer back to my local BC Signature Liquor Store, where they let me exchange it with no questions asked. I used my store credit not on Russell products. I actually had a lot of fun spending my store credit on my favorite beers. Yes, I would like liquor store gift certificates for Christmas.
I don’t really have anything against Russell. For all I know, the beer could have been baking in the sun all days, thus spoiling it. What I do know is if they are brewing their beer right, that it should last for years under the right conditions. Another certainty is that the word is out and spreading that Russell Cream Ale is no good, because I’m sure I wasn’t the only one affected by this.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Chris:
I am very sorry about your experience and I would love the opportunity to make it up to you. We are serious about brewing top quality beer and want to always improve on what we do. This is why we take your comments to heart and want to create better experience for you. Please, contact me directly at angie@russellbeer.com to chat about how we can make this right for you. Sincerely, Angie Harris
Thanks Angie, great to hear from you guys. I’d love to be a Russel fan again and will for sure contact you.
So you returned beer, not purchased from a BC liquor store to a BC Liquor store? Did they know you didn’t buy it from them?
Yes I did. They just assumed I bought it from them. I suppose that’s one consumer benefit of a liquor sales monopoly.
It sounds like you defrauded a branch of the provincial government and then incriminated yourself by posting it on the Internet.
I suppose I unknowingly did so, guess I will have to accept the consequences. You think I’ll get jail time even though I’d be a first time offender?
Pingback: A tour of Russell Brewing | Love Good Beer
Check out the follow up post: http://lovegoodbeer.com/2009/01/a-tour-of-russell-brewing/
Russell more than made it up to me. Cheers to Russell.
Interesting – I had cans of several Russell beers a couple of months ago at a tasting with some friends, and they were all in various states of sourness, from on-the-verge to full-on unintentional lambic.
The claim that it can be chalked up to improper storage of their unpasteurized beer is a bit disingenuous, given that there are thousands of unpasteurized beers on the market in cans and bottles that undoubtedly go through a good deal of temperature fluctuation between leaving the brewery and being consumed by the customer, and few of them go bad.
Honestly, the sourness we experienced struck us as being the result of an infection during the brewing or canning process, especially since we had three or four beers from them with the same problem.
Oops – I guess I should’ve more carefully read the later post in this series before posting my comment above. I see now that they’ve admitted to having some issues with the canning line a few months back. Good to know that they’ve (hopefully) found the problem, as the couple of beers we tried that we’re quite so sour actually showed promise of being pretty decent.
Hey Greg, I wanted to give Russell the benefit of the doubt considering that the beer came from an ultimate tournament where temperatures were 30 degrees or more. I did try other beers from that tournament that were good, but they could have been from a different batch. Infection was definitely a possibility, sadly Erik has had the same problem with Spinnakers, detailed in his last post.
It does sound like Russell has addressed all or most of their production problems, at least all of the beer we tried at the brewery was unspoiled. They are definitely very passionate people who are proud of their beer and I really appreciated their efforts to get me back on board the Russell train. If you let them know of your experience, maybe they will extend you the same opportunity to visit their brewery?
Cheers,
Chris
Chris – given that I live about 2500 miles from Surrey, an offer to visit the brewery probably wouldn’t really do me much good.
I’ll make a point of trying their beer again in the future, though, should the opportunity arise.
I figured as much, but you’d at least have something to do if you came out here:) Does Russell have distribution in Ontario?
No, Russell isn’t available out here. I got my cans through other means.
Pingback: Russellfest | Love Good Beer
As Russell is still unavailable in Calgary, I had six flats “imported” from the lower mainland in the spring of last year.
I am just running through the last six pack of Pale Ale & it still tastes as good as the day it was born.
I am glad you had a better experience than we did Hugh. I am not sure if you’ve read the follow up post, but Russell has more than made amends for the bad batch.
Cheers,
Chris
Pingback: Limited Release Russell IP’eh | Love Good Beer
If Russell Beer is so passionate about selling and brewing a great product, why has someone been dumping stock from $.75 down to .03???
The company and stock is a horrible joke. And I would say a Harris is burning stock or using it as toilet paper.
Can’t say I know anything about all that. I did like their Black Death Porter though.
Pingback: Russell Brewing is so rad and so not | Love Good Beer