Posted on April 13, 2017
Real Ale Mysterium Verum Coffissar Bottle Swap Program
To our Mysterium Verum fans: we’ve had some dedicated customers notify us of several reports of sour bottles of Coffissar (Coffissar is a barrel-aged imperial stout with coffee added – this beer should not be sour). We’d like to apologize to anyone who has consumed or purchased any Coffissar that was affected. There is no safety concern for anyone who has drunk the beer, but this is not how we intended for this to beer to be enjoyed. Quality is a core Real Ale value and our goal is to provide a consistent and reliable product for you to enjoy. For those of you who did buy Coffissar that was sour, we’d like to offer you a new bottle of beer, on us, as an apology.
We want to assure our customers that this incident does not affect any other beer packaged by Real Ale in kegs, 12-oz. bottles or cans, 16-oz. cans, or 22-oz. bombers. Our Mysterium Verum beer bottles are hand-filled on a dedicated line that is separate from the rest of our packaging equipment.
As far as how this happened: working with beer in barrels can be a risky business to begin with. We purposefully put the beer in contact with wood in order to absorb all the delicious flavors it can offer. But, that sometimes means that the wood also transfers unwanted wild yeast and/or bacteria into beers that are not intended to be sour. Before we package any Mysterium Verum, we taste the beer in every single barrel (someone’s gotta do it) and separate the ones that are off, infected, or otherwise not up to par. In the case of Coffissar, we believe that there might have been an errant barrel or two in the mix that tasted fine upon sampling, but once the beer was packaged and stored warm, some wild yeast and/or bacteria manifested flavors that had not been present while it was stored cold. So, it is likely that if your bottle has been stored cold since it left the brewery it may not be affected.
We have made efforts to remove the remaining Coffissar from shelves. For those of you who have already consumed or emptied your sour bottles and/or have some in your cellar that was stored warm, we’d like to offer a replacement bottle of our Mysterium Verum beer that was purposefully soured (brands for trade will be dependent on available stock) free of charge. All we ask is that you present your empty or full bottle(s) of Coffissar (or your receipt) to redeem your new bottle(s). This program will start immediately and continue until June 30, 2017.
To replace your bottle, you may:
1) Visit us in Blanco. Please email Gabe at info@realalebrewing.com with the subject “Coffissar bottle swap”, your name, city, phone, the number of affected bottles you purchased, and the date you’ll be visiting us in Blanco to redeem your bottle(s). Please give us at least a week’s notice if possible and we’ll be ready for you.
2) Attend a bottle swap event in with one of our sales representatives in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, or Houston. Dates are currently being scheduled and will be announced on our website and Facebook soon.
3) Swap out your bottle for a limited edition Mysterium Verum t-shirt instead ($25 value). Please email info@realalebrewing.com with your name, phone, address, shirt size(s) (one shirt per bottle), and we’ll get it in the mail to you.
Thank you for understanding as we figure this out. We’re excited to have Mysterium Verum in bottles and appreciate that you care enough about your beer to let us know when something’s not right. We hope you keep coming back to try more of our beers, and we promise to do our best to always bring you the highest quality product we can.
If you have questions, please email info@realalebrewing.com with the subject “Coffissar bottle swap”.
San Antonio Bottle Swap Dates
Saturday, May 6th from 6:00 – 9:00 PM at Big Hops The Bridge (306 Austin St., Suite 101, San Antonio, TX 78215)Wednesday, May 10th from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at the Big Hops Bitters (226 W. Bitters Rd., Suite 108, San Antonio, TX 78216)
Houston Bottle Swap Dates:
Thursday, April 27th from 6:30-8:30 PM at Guru Burgers and Crepes (2268 Texas Drive, Sugarland, TX 77479)Friday, April 28th from 6:30-8:30 PM at HopDoddy Vintage Park (142 Vintage Park Blvd., Suite A, Houston, TX 77070)Monday, May 1st from 5:00-7:00 PM at Petrol Station (985 Wakefield Drive, Houston, TX 77018)Tuesday, May 2nd from 5:00-7:00 PM at Nobi Asian Grill & Sandwiches (3640 E. FM 528 Road, Friendswood, TX, 77456)
Wednesday, May 31st from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at Whichcraft Mueller (1900 Simond Ave, Austin, TX, 78723)