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Saint Arnold Brewing dumps 11,000 gallons of beer, announces Santo delay

"We regret to announce that we are delaying the release of our newest beer, Santo. After brewing a 10 gallon test brew several months ago that we were enthusiastic about, we scaled up the recipe and recently brewed our standard 3,700 gallon batch. In fact, we have three such batches in the fermenters right now. After filtering a batch this week and getting it ready for packaging we tasted it. It was good, but it was missing that spark that separates a good beer from a great beer. So we are dumping the over 11,000 gallons of beer we have in the tanks."

Don't they realize how many Bud drinkers they could save with 11,000 gallons? Even if it's not up to their standards, it's got to be better than Bud

Oh, the humanity...

I guess they haven't heard of blending before.

or the bottom line

KMcK wrote:or the bottom line

They certainly must not have the sort of taxation that I believe is normal in Canada. Here, you'd have already paid your taxes on that 11,000 gallons.

Keggermeister wrote:I guess they haven't heard of blending before.

That's probably why they had 3 batches on the go. I'd say more likely it was infected. But all 3 batches would have had to be infected for them to dump it all.

Does infection happen often in commercial breweries?

Anyone can brew in commercial breweries, so yes, some breweries dump a lot of beer when the brewer isn't good at what he does. Others prefer to sell it anyways.

I'm very doubtful the beer was bad, I've spent time in that brewery too. I know the owner/masterbrewer/bjcp Brock Wagner, he is about as good as they get. Now we all get bad batches now and then for one reason or another but Brock generally isn't shy about telling you when he does. He will however put beer straight down the fucking drain if it isn't up to his standards as will I, doesn't mean it's infected.

As for the taxes..... USA and Canada both operate about the same. Pay the taxes on the finished beer, if you later decide to dump it they refund every cent for every oz destroyed. $500 of raw materials can make about $15,000 worth of beer at retail value. So it might seem like a lot but really it's a pretty small cost to absorb if you decide to dump, tiny in the grand scheme of things.

I'm with Brock. I've dumped 2 batches over the past 2 yrs, one was infected, the other wasn't up to my standards.

I know of some local breweries that have dumped so much beer over time that it's an embarrassment... so we never hear about it




Sent from the hop-phone.

NASH wrote:As for the taxes..... USA and Canada both operate about the same. Pay the taxes on the finished beer, if you later decide to dump it they refund every cent for every oz destroyed.

Ah! I've heard more than a couple of wine-makers talking about how they're taxed on the quantity they make - but nobody ever let on that if they dump it than can get a refund. That makes way more sense - even assuming better taxation rates there, the loss just on taxes would be huge.