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Innovation?

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  • 21-04-2011 6:52pm
    #1
    the beer revolu
    Registered Users Posts: 16,824 ✭✭✭✭


    Adnam's Innovation.
    Anyone have an Innovation lately - one of the bottles with the new neck label?
    It tastes completely different - not grapefruity or really hoppy anymore. Tastes like a strong lager now.
    Could it be a bad batch (I've had about 4 now and I got someone else to taste it too and he agreed it was different)?
    Or have they changed this beer dramatically?
    I've sent them an email but no reply yet.

    Anyone?
    Tagged:


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    #2
    Solebear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3 ✭Solebear


    the beer revolu wrote: »
    Adnam's Innovation.
    Anyone have an Innovation lately - one of the bottles with the new neck label?
    It tastes completely different - not grapefruity or really hoppy anymore. Tastes like a strong lager now.
    Could it be a bad batch (I've had about 4 now and I got someone else to taste it too and he agreed it was different)?
    Or have they changed this beer dramatically?
    I've sent them an email but no reply yet.

    Anyone?

    Hi, I'm the brewer at Adnams. I was sent the e-mail today but haven't been at work and we've changed over to outlook from Lotus notes and it's apparently stopping me from logging in from home to reply, anyway enough about my IT traumas.
    We haven't changed the recipe for innovation. However I do agree it has come out differently. We don't filter or bottle on site so instead send it off for bottling elsewhere. Having talked about it with our bottlers we can only assume that the filtration was overly effective and it may also have been overly pasteurised. For me the thing that's missing is the hop character and a little bit of body. The wheat in the brew is coming through much more which I think is a result of the lower hop character and body.
    The filtration next time will be less aggressive and we are looking at whether it's possible to lower the pasteurisation.
    In the meantime, as much as I would like you to buy it direct, I suggest you try the Marks & Spencers Winter IPA (very soon to be joined by a Summer IPA) which is Innovation as you know it.
    Sorry it's not been what you were expecting. I'll e-mail you as well when I'm back in the office next week.
    Cheers
    Fergus


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    #3
    the beer revolu
    Registered Users Posts: 16,824 ✭✭✭✭the beer revolu


    And who would have known that the brewer from Adnam's would be on here!

    Thanks for the reply (and I did only send the email yesterday, and it is a bank holiday weekend) and thanks for not pawning me off with some marketing rubbish about consistency and standards.

    One question: how will we know that a bottle we pick up will be the Innovation that we've all come to love and not the over filtered, over pasteurized interloper of late? Is there a batch number or something to look out for?
    Or maybe you could take off that silly neck label on subsequent batches!


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    #4
    Solebear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3 ✭Solebear


    the beer revolu wrote: »
    And who would have known that the brewer from Adnam's would be on here!

    Thanks for the reply (and I did only send the email yesterday, and it is a bank holiday weekend) and thanks for not pawning me off with some marketing rubbish about consistency and standards.

    One question: how will we know that a bottle we pick up will be the Innovation that we've all come to love and not the over filtered, over pasteurized interloper of late? Is there a batch number or something to look out for?
    Or maybe you could take off that silly neck label on subsequent batches!

    I have been on before as I am always interested in how our beer is going down back home, but I try not to butt in to much.
    Essentially any bottle with a best before date after the one you've just had will be a different batch. But in the meantime try the M&S winter IPA. I think it will tide you over


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    #5
    boardsy
    Registered Users Posts: 53 ✭✭boardsy


    Fascinating - i got four bottles recently with the new label, and it turned out that two of them were the original we know and love and two were this new brew, which isn't bad at all in fact, but it just isn't Innovation! It really should be re-labelled as something else I feel; it's a different beer.

    Interesting to know that the M&S Winter IPA is essentially Innovation - can you get that in Ireland, or more specifically, Cork, does anyone know?


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    #6
    BeerNut
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 11,811 Mod ✭✭✭✭BeerNut


    You can definitely get it in Dublin. Not all M&Ss have a beer off licence, though.

    My beer blog | The Twitter | My other beer blog



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    #7
    Ronan cork
    Registered Users Posts: 255 ✭✭Ronan cork


    yeah they have it in m+s in merchants quay along with a couple more adnams ales that are worth a try...they really did let down their fans with this disaster...


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    #8
    Solebear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3 ✭Solebear


    Sorry the innovation isn't what you were expecting.When it left for bottling it was exactly as we would have wanted it to be. However as explained below we think the combined effects of the filtration and over pasteurisation removed much of the hop aroma. There is some inconsistency within the same batch, with some being much closer to what it should be, which can only really be down to parts of the run being over pasteurised.
    Once it's bottled and labelled the choice is really to either dump it or go with it. Relabelling would cost more than the cost of the beer in the first place.
    We had it tasted on a few public tasting panels against the previous versions and while most people picked up the difference it was actually mostly positive for the less hoppy version. There has been several questions about why we don't keep the new flavour profile but as I much prefer the hoppier version we will be making sure the next bottling is to that previous flavour profile.
    If anyone has any questions then you can e-mail me at fergus.fitzgerald@adnams.co.uk


    Fergus


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