Peoples taste

[jebzter]

We are seeing a few of our customers coming back and indicating that one of their customers tastes diacetyl in our beer. We do perform forced diacetyl tests on all of our beers before before racking from fv to brite, and again before packaging. The beer never tests positive. We have evaluated the beers from the customers for infection, and any other source of increasing dacetyl, and have had no infections. Upon our re-taste testing, we do not find any diacetyl, and neither do some of our trusted tasters(bjcp master certified judges), we've tracked one problem down to a particular lot of hops which was old, the other one we have no idea, other than perhaps some people are improperly describing what they are tasting. At what point do you see it as just the differences in peoples taste, IE: they taste something and call it diacetyl, or is it someone that is very sensitive to the flavor and it is below our threshold point? We currently have experienced this once on one batch of beer, and 3 times on another batch. The more frequent one we chased down to a hops issue.

[AnthonyB]

Test for VDK and start quantifying with a lab number...

http://coastalsciencelabs.com/brewing-and-winemaking-services.html

Then try and correlate that with reported instances of the issue... another thing you might do is try and specificaly track down a person who does taste whatever is going on, or seek out an outside, 3rd party taster who isn't familiar with the beer and get a blind tasting from them.

[Junkyard]

Not many people even know what diacetyl is. Are these customers saying it tastes buttery? or are they actually name dropping diacetyl? If they are using the term diacetyl i would imagine we can make a couple assumptions:
1. It is someone who knows what they are talking about to some degree.
2. Also, you can assume they don't like the flavor they think they are perceiving.

Therefore, it seems you might either have a problem with your recipe creating a buttery presence. ie: corn in a cream ale recipe. or you may be overlooking another variable.

what beer style are we talking about here?

[organicbrewer]

Possibly dirty draft lines?

[ChesterBrew]

The best you can do is have tests performed and rely on a group of people who are qualified to make this judgement. If you're doing a diacetyl rest, even more so. Some people are more sensitive to different compounds than others, myself included.

[Bainbridge]

Could be dirty draft lines (if you are talking draft). Some people are much more sensitive to diacetyl than others, could be they sense it when you all are deadened to it, which happens. That's where the lab analysis comes in.

Most people, and I believe this to be a broader life lesson in general, most people don't know what they are talking about. Ignore those people. Listen to the opinions of people who've rightfully earned your respect. The barrage of unasked for and uninformed comments that I get as a brewer I've taken to responding with:

"Thanks, we have top men working on that."
"Who?"
"Top. Men."

[Sauce]

Most people, and I believe this to be a broader life lesson in general, most people don't know what they are talking about. Ignore those people. Listen to the opinions of people who've rightfully earned your respect. The barrage of unasked for and uninformed comments that I get as a brewer I've taken to responding with:

"Thanks, we have top men working on that."
"Who?"
"Top. Men."

niiice........ ;-)

[ptrain]

As a Certified Cicerone, I make sure our beers are not representing any off-flavors. If you have Master BJCP judges and you are doing tests, you are 99.99999999% in the clear. Some people are very sensitive to particular flavors. I have a theory about people tasting certain off-flavors...most people, generally unaware of what these flavors are, drink your beers with the task of trying to find flaws instead of enjoyment. Just like a menu description can suggest particular nuances of a beer's flavor profile, thinking about off-flavors can make you believe they are there.

I also would love to know what style the beer is. A common misconception of diacetyl is when a beer has some wonderful caramel notes.

Also, for some styles diacetyl is acceptable in small amounts.

[Junkyard]

no one is ever 99.99999% in the clear though... tasting the beer before it goes out doesnt mean that the beer will get properly handled by the draft accounts. This problem could very well be caused by a pedio draft line infection. Something even cicerone training cant always fore-see

[ptrain]

no one is ever 99.99999% in the clear though... tasting the beer before it goes out doesnt mean that the beer will get properly handled by the draft accounts. This problem could very well be caused by a pedio draft line infection. Something even cicerone training cant always fore-see

Absolutely correct and a part that I didn't even consider. When I was on the draft account side, before the brewery side, I cleaned my lines every two week and acid flushed my lines every 3 months, because I cared about the beer and my customers. Unfortunately, most accounts don't take care of their own property correctly...and they should, as it can ruin a first impression of someone's brand and their business as well.

[AnthonyB]

OP indicated "multiple customers" coming back and telling a story of someone tasting diacetyl in a beer... it seems highly unlikely that multiple accounts have pedio infections in lines that severe...

[Brandjes]

Almost all of the accounts I visit change their beers on tap without regard to what was running through the lines before. I've gotten pumpkin spiced pale ale on more than one occasion and I've had customers in the brewery tell me that my beer at so and so doesn't taste right. Upon visiting I have confirmed that my beer is "off" in the sense that it has some other flavors it is picking up. Not spoiled -just different.
My thought on a bar customer throwing around "diacetyl" ,"acetaldehyde","DMS" or insert your off flavor term of the day here - is that it is mostly showboating. Most bar tenders won't know what that means and if you don't detect it and it doesn't show up in tests then that is probably what it is.
Everybody has different tastes and different taste perceptions. I always cringe when I get someone in the brewery who says they don't like IPA because they are skunky. Not the term I would use, but that's their perception. I try to educate them but most of the time it ends with them drinking a blonde or brown.

[SeattleBrewer]

I was on a sales ride-along once and went to a middle of the road bar to try and sell our beer. The bartender said they've had a keg of a beer on for months because it tastes like butter. I know the brewer and the brewery that it came from and would trust them to make flawlessly fermented beer. Tried a sample and it was the most heinously buttery popcorn bomb of all time.
Turns out they hadn't cleaned their lines. Ever. EVER. The bar was at least five years old if not more. And this is not a rare occurrence in the marketplace. Sometimes it pays to NOT sell beer to certain accounts.



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[Junkyard]

OP indicated "multiple customers" coming back and telling a story of someone tasting diacetyl in a beer... it seems highly unlikely that multiple accounts have pedio infections in lines that severe...

OP also indicated that it happened 4 times, and that at least one of those times was thought to be from old hops. Either way, 4 occurrences of a pedio infected draft line is completely possible in my mind.

But since you don't think so, what else could it be?

[TGTimm]

....Turns out they hadn't cleaned their lines. Ever. EVER. The bar was at least five years old if not more. And this is not a rare occurrence in the marketplace. Sometimes it pays to NOT sell beer to certain accounts.

The guy who used to clean beer systems in our county retired about ten years ago. I'm certain that several of the local bars have not cleaned their systems since, while others may do so every year or so. Part of my job is to sample our goods at various venues (tough work, but somebody's gotta do it), and there are a couple I'd really rather not have serving our product. Unfortunately, that's the distributor's responsibility, and we have little or no control over who buys or serves what.

A customer recently brought back a case of our Pale he'd bought in Portland, complaining it tasted "awful" (no beer geek terms, which is rare for a Portlandian). I tasted a bottle and was horrified--it was like sucking on a cardboard box full of rancid meat. Checking the date on the case, I found the beer was over two years old (and probably had not been refrigerated for most of that time)!

This is unfortunately common. Also unfortunate is that most customers complaining of "bad beer" don't realize that we have a date stamp on the mother carrier, but nowhere else, and they've thrown the original carrier away.

And who gets blamed for the "bad beer"..?