I've enjoyed everything Hoops has gotten me from 18th Street but they're not good at PR. They better learn in a hurry with so much competition out there. The prices I've heard from them don't help them either.
Yeah, I wish 18th would hire a mouthpiece - they can't make even a good faith effort to make things right (bring back your bottle, full or empty, for a gift cert of the full amount of purchase) without coming off sounding like arrogant asspricks. Knowing what I know about them, I think part of that is just that they fly by the seat of their pants. The other part is that 18th is very much a one-person company - it's Drew Fox's vision and his baby, and he does not take well to someone second guessing his decisions, nor the quality of his beer, and maybe that is the arrogant part that emanates throughout their public voice.
All that said, I don't necessarily fault them for this beer going bad - it's barrel aged, and that process invites them nasty microbes necessary and naturally present in the brewing process to get funky. And that's not always a good or intentional thing, although that process is the genius of Belgian abbey-brewed beers, that really only air-borne on wild yeast, but I digress. Now, 18th has said that their lab work on the BA Hunter came back clean - once, twice, three times a lady, and yet they have an infection problem in what they describe as random bottles. They also had a problem with the last batch of coffee Hunter (not in one I sent your way, I don't think
), and so that would make one wonder. Coincidental, or? Now, if it happens a third time, then I would think they have a quality control issue.
