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old faithful wrote:A brewery (any size or kind) needs as far as possible to avoid putting out a beer with flaws, certainly.
Steelback, for whatever reason (I suspect flawed leadership), chose to allow many products out the door with massive flavour problems. Their huge marketing budget and unique (but not yet accepted) package should have put them into a market category with growth potential but I am shocked to see anyone still walking out the door of TBS with a case of it now. It has only gotten marginally better as time has gone on.
I prefer to dwell on deranged conspiracy theories as to what Frank is really up to. Fundementally I generally think people behave in a rational manner yet Steelback doesn't have any of that.
The beers seemed to me quite normal commercial-style beers with their own twist to be sure (kind of a toasted taste) but nothing like what some on the board are saying. I suspect any such problems were early days and are being ironed out. In any case, when you think of it there is really a broad range of beer tastes out there. There are a number of canned imported beers sold at the LCBO that in my opinion are quite hard to drink, they either suffer I think from overage or over-processing of some kind. Some have a kind of chemical-like taste to me yet I see people carry out cases and 6 packs to their car so somebody likes it. Obviously we here know good beer (I don't mean that facetiously) but there is a tolerance in the wider market for a broad range of tastes. The other day I sampled in Toronto a real ale that had gone sour. It was quite literally like mild vinegar. The staff replaced it without complaint to their credit. Yet I saw numerous people ordering it after, sometimes after asking for a sample first. Some here enjoy the acidulous taste of, say, Rodenbach, so again I can only muse that it's a big world out there and everyone has their own preference.
Once again OF I have to reinforce the fact that none of the imported east block welfare pilsners that contain off tastes due to ancient/unclean equipment and cheap ingredients, claim to be "premium Canadian beer"..as Steelback does. This is the standard they must be judged by, and in that regard I think most of the negative reviews are spot on....the steelback beers are quite inferior in ingredients and process to the premium brands they pretend to compete with.
I recall the one character flaw of all the steelbacks was the "harshness" of the beer which was a result of little or no aging time ( makes sense as I saw no aging tanks at the brewery)...also the off tastes and aromas from infected yeast and the vegetal smells from the use of adjuncts....even a bland fizzy concotion like Blue does not have these brewing flaws. Now , I wil concede that they may have cleaned up their yeast problems but unless they invested in aging tanks and changed the formulas to contain higher percentages of malt, these basic flaws still remain. I find it hard to believe, given infamous attitude of steelback's management, that they would take the criticism as a wake up call to actually IMPROVE both quality and process of their product to come into mainstream quality standards....from where I sit, it appears they are flogging the same old crap and putting massive investment in deceptive advertising, cheap marketing ploys, flash packaging and fallacious retail classification.
Personally I was so turned off by the first steelbacks I tasted and the subsequent sociopathic behaviour of Steelback management, that I refuse to buy any new product just to see if there has been a slight improvement.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion OF and your assessment of this beer is just as valid as mine from your own frame of reference, but there is a point where we have to address reality and the reality of Steelback is they are selling an inferior product at premium prices and they hope to float sales on deceptive marketing...in my book that makes them loathsome and my attitude is reflected in my reviews. The mega brewers at least have a modicum of quality and repeatability of process that they can claim "premiun beer" status for the products they market as such even though their product may be bland and too uniform for our tastes. Unlike Steelback they classify their high gravity low/no aged adjunct products as "economy brands" ....if Steelback were honest they would sell their product line in this category.
Bottim line: It is a mistake to classify or equate the steelback products as or to "premium Canadian beer"....as a caveat; if, or when, I am proven wrong about Steelback's process/materials/classification, I will be the first to retry their products with no prejudice.....but that time is yet to come.
Last edited by pootz on Tue Nov 29, 2005 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
old faithful wrote:By the way are their beers available in draft form? Draft is always best and even some indifferent beers show better (usually) in that form.
I tried Steelback's Bruce County Wild on draft at the Fort York festival this past summer. While it wasn't great, it was a bit better than any of the bottled Steelback beers I've tried - and I've had them all except for Blue Thunder (albeit only samples in most cases).
