Brains Brewery pours away thousands of pints of beer

Cardiff’s Brains Brewery has poured away almost 40,000 pints of beer in two separate quality control incidents in the last few months, with the brewery producing fresh supplies ahead of the rugby this weekend.

The Duke of Cambridge opened Brains’ new brewery earlier this year

Brains, which opened its new brewery in Tremorfa in the suburbs of Cardiff in March, has had to pour away large volumes of beer after two separate incidents.

The first happened back in June, when according to a spokesperson from Brains, the brewer was still brewing at its old site in Cardiff’s city centre.

This led to the pouring away of the equivalent of 36,000 pints after problems with the beer settling contributed to the brew developing a “tangy” taste.

The brewery said it immediately recalled the spoiled beer replacing it with “fresh supplies that were brewed in our brand new state-of-the-art Dragon Brewery”, a spokesperson told BBC Wales. It is believed that the majority of the faulty beer was spotted before it was given to pubs.

However another incident at its new brewery, although involving a much smaller volume of beer, has led to further wastage.

Wales Online reported that between 1,750 to 2,100 pints had been recalled since the brewer moved to its new site, with bars in the centre of Cardiff complaining about the taste of some batches in recent weeks.

The news site then goes on to state that Brains is set to withdraw between 250 and 300 containers of beer in its latest recall – with 72 pints in each “container”. This equates to between 18,000 and 21,600 pints.

In the latest incident, a spokesperson from Brains told the drinks business that the beer was still drinkable, but that it did not meet Brains’ “high standards”.

The statement continued: “At Brains we maintain a system of quality control checks right through from the brewery to the glass. Unfortunately we have recently identified a number of casks of beer that while drinkable do not meet our high standards in every respect.

“As a result we have taken the proactive decision to withdraw beer from these production batches from the distribution chain. We have already produced fresh supplies that have been rigorously checked and we have begun delivering these into pubs across our estate.

“We have taken this decision to ensure that we have the best quality beer available to all our customers and to make sure that supplies are ready for the busy rugby weekend ahead.”

The spokesperson added that the earlier incident in June was “unrelated to this current scenario”. According to Wales Online, the beer affected in the latest incident was “primarily” Brains Bitter and not Brains Smooth.