Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

I got this from the Sam Adams site today.  Figured you should all know.

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As a loyal supporter and fan of our beer, we wanted to get in touch with you about an announcement that we made yesterday. We have announced a cautious, voluntary product recall of some bottles of Samuel Adams. While there is no problem with our beer, we believe a small proportion of bottles from our outside glass supplier could contain some small bits of glass.

The bottles we've identified as being possibly affected are from one glass plant of the five that we get our bottles from. The issue affects less than 25% of our bottled beer and of that amount, we believe far less than 1% of the bottles we're recalling are actually affected. We have no reports of any injury from our drinkers related to this issue. But because the safety of our drinkers is of paramount concern to us, we are being cautious and issuing the recall for all bottles from this glass plant.

But not to worry, this doesn't mean that you have to stop drinking Samuel Adams! All draft beer is perfectly fine and most of our bottled beer is not in these possibly affected bottles. It's easy to spot the bottles we're recalling: they are all embossed to say "N35" at the base of the bottle below the label (see photo on web site). We are working with our wholesalers and retailers to ensure that the affected bottles are removed from stores quickly.

We wanted to be sure that our loyal Sam fans are aware of the problem and know that we are doing everything we can to address this situation quickly. We are disappointed that because of these bottles supplied to us, we didn't live up to your expectations as a loyal Sam Adams drinker. We believe that we are taking all the right steps to ensure that the bottled Samuel Adams beer out there meets our quality standards and your expectations. If you have any questions about the recall, we created a special web site and a toll-free number 1-888-674-5159 to answer your questions.

As always, we appreciate your support.

Cheers,
Andrew & Bert

I wonder if a case or two of free Sam is worth a self-inflicted mouth wound? As long as its their Schwartzbier or even the Irish Red.

My two favorites from their seasonal offerings are the scotch ale and the old fezzywig spiced ale.  We always get a winter pack for folks coming in for Thanksgiving at our house, but I try to get the couple of bottles of Old Fezzy before my brother finds them.  They are quite tasty.

When I was microbiologist for Sutter Home Winery, we also had a similar circumstance.  We got the problem worked out very quickly without any consumer problems, but this is a very real problem that stems from the glass bottle production facilities.  So this is no BS.

How did you get it worked out?  Do you have to "sample" the glassware as it comes in the door?

It was pretty simple.  We were given cases from a certain lot of bottles.  We put water in them, and filtered onto a membrane that could be placed onto a slide for microscopy.  Then it was basically counting the number of glass particles per grid.

I don't know how other companies do this, but this was our way, and it was very efficient and we were able to stop the bottle lots before they were bottled.  So you can be assured that there is no Sutter Home or M. Trinchero wine out there with glass in it.