Short’s Brewing Addresses Bottling Issues

From Danny Fullpint – One of the main sources of the beers we learn about and review are through online trade over at ratebeer.com .

The wonderful community of mostly dudes allows for me to ship out some of the treasures of the west coast, in exchange for the awesome beers being made east of the Rockies.  One brewery that has been a hot topic is Short’s Brewing from Bellaire, Michigan.

They have made a name for themselves with unique brews such as Key Lime Pie, S’more Stout and P B and J.  We have received almost all of their beers through trade in the last 6 months, and unfortunately a great deal of them have been what we considered to be infected. When we say infected, we are referring to big time off flavors, like sourness in an IPA, burnt hair in a stout, rubber or plastic notes, or even something akin to mold.  We reached out to Short’s to let them know of our findings.

They were very receptive to our feedback, and vowed to address the situation as soon as possible.  Below is word from Jon at Short’s, who wanted to let all you fans near and far, know what’s going on with Short’s bottling, and what’s being done to correct the issue.  Also note, the tasting notes we published thus far for Short’s Brews have been bottles that were not infected.  Cheers, Danny!

From Jon Wojtowicz, Beer Liborator – “I apologize for the infected Short’s product that you have received.  This is a problem that we are constantly dealing w/ here in Michigan, and one that we are not taking lightly.  The biggest issue that we have encountered, seems to be with the improper storage of our beer.  Perhaps one of the biggest reasons why you do not see more breweries experimenting with certain adjuncts on such a large scale bottling/distribution wise, is the fact that they introduce a whole new set of variables that makes the beer much more susceptible to spoilage.

We have also created a slight conundrum for ourselves, where as we don’t plan on distributing outside of the state of Michigan, but we are creating beers that we know people are going to want to trade for and ship long distances.  This shipping creates exactly the kind of circumstances that we would want to avoid, when taking into account any kind of infection that may be able to take advantages of fluctuating temperatures.  In order to correct these issues, keep quality at a premium, and still be as creative as we would like to be, Short’s has taken out a recent loan that will allow us to purchase and implement an array of processing equipment that will minimize, and even eliminate a number of these QC related concerns that we have been dealing with lately.

Sometimes the pains associated with increased growth are not realized until they present themselves in the worst way possible, ie. spoiled product.  Regardless, we never want to be just a 5-6 beer brewery, and we enjoy pushing the envelope on perceived conceptual understandings of what people consider to be beer.  We realize that education is the key to total craft beer appreciation, but sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands.  We aim to eliminate 99% of all potential issues before any product leaves our door.

Wish us luck, we are going to need it! Again, Short’s Brewing Company would like to apologize to anyone who has received an inferior product, but would only encourage craft beer enthusiasts to purchase beer that has been handled correctly and kept refrigerated at all times.
Cheers

Below is a list of equipment/upgrades that will be utilized in some form or another to help minimize the risk of product deterioration out in the field.  This equipment will not be used on all of our products, but will certainly be applied to those that use excessive amounts of exotic ingredients, or have extremely elevated sugar concentrations from certain adjuncts.

• Centrifuge
• Flash Pasteurizer
• Process Kettle
• Yeast Propagation System
• Glycol Upgrades
• Temperature Control Upgrades
• Keg Cleaning/Packaging Line (Steam Clean)”