Sparklepuff... or Sparklechunks??

This is what my now 32 Sparklepuff Triple IPAs have all
looked like. This was the fugliest one I could find in my
photo folder. Orange juice looking, white floaties. I actually
assumed the floaties were peach puree given the taste but
have been told since it's likely yeast and other brewing bits.

At this point, I can only assume I'm the luckiest man in Ontario. Have I won like a $50 million Lotto-Max? Hell, no! Or I would be writing this from my permanent residence in Las Vegas.

I am referring to the Flying Monkeys' Sparklepuff Triple IPA Sweepstakes. I'm 32 beers in and I've never had a bad one. True story. Mine have all had the consistency of orange juice, a handful of white floaties and were as tasty as hell. And at 10.2%, several have knocked me flat on my ass. My ass is already flat so we're not exactly talking Buns of Steel here. Buns of Tapioca, maybe.

The release of Sparklepuff in early-February had a lot of us excited. High-regarded brewery, Triple IPA... we was pumped, I tells ya. No one more so than my pal, Steve from Southern Ontario Beer Boys. When we connected at Wellington Brewing on February 9th for the launch of our 5 out of 5 Foreign Extra Stout, which is chockful of Smoked Barley Flake goodness, thanks to my and Tiffany's (@travellingpint) overpour of the malt, no one was more pumped for the release than Steve.

This was Steve's first - and only - pour of Sparklepuff,
which he instantly christened #SparkleChunks. Okay,
mine get a handful of floaties but this is a different cat
altogether. He actually kinda sullied his glass with this.

He marvelled that it was likely the most talked-about craft beer release on Instagram for the previous 24 hours. That would soon change. But we'll get there in a second. On the weekend of the release, someone posted a picture on Twitter of their Sparklepuff. I saved the photo and even tagged it with the guy's name but for the life of me cannot find it. I've tried scrolling back on my notifications and it takes me hours to go back even a week. My friends and I are more active on Twitter than I realized.

However, let me describe it best I can. It looked like a half-pour of pure white sediment surrounded by thin orange goop. It was disgusting. Calling it a drain-pour doesn't even apply because you'd be afraid of what would happen to your plumbing. There are some things even industrial-strength Drano cannot handle. And since sewer-pours are highly illegal in Ontario, this is a matter only a toilet could deal with. Good luck with that, local Sewage Treatment Plant. That said, I encouraged him to open his second because I wanted to see if lightning would strike twice. His second looked exactly like Steve's on the left. Not exactly the prettiest at the prom.

The reaction to his picture on Twitter was, like the movies, both fast and furious, emphasis on the latter. But that, too, is the nature of Twitter. To wit, if a woman posts a picture of her new hairstyle on Facebook, she instantly gets 107 likes and 90-plus comments about how beautiful she is. Post that same picture on Twitter and the response from unknown strangers half a world away is more likely to be "I hope you didn't pay cash for that" or "Did they use a weed-whacker?" After that guy's pic, there were practically calls for Flying Monkeys excommunication from the Ontario craft beer industry.

Twitter buddy Dave D did this and it's pretty funny. Also, it has Batman
in it so you immediately have my attention. Watch your mouth, Robin!

Certainly, the word "boycott" popped up numerous times, as did "recall."

But that one photo was not an aberration. Instantly, Linda, a friend and a home-brewer in Durham, was on there, saying she had to filter hers or it would have been undrinkable. Even with that, she didn't think much of the taste. And she comes armed with beer filters that most of us do not have. When it's someone you know, suddenly, things become a little more credible.

And then it kept happening. Steve from Southern Ontario Beer Boys posted his nasty-ass pic. Jane, a Beer Store friend from Thunder bay, said hers was just as bad. Young Josh, a member of the Craft Brewery Touring Brew Crew, posted his pic. As bad as Steve's. Finally, Ontario Craft Beer posted a half-glass of sediment, which I'll show further down.

Four-time Ontario Beer Writer of the Year Ben Johnson
crafted up this clever meme while voicing his disapproval
of beer with literal chunks in it. As usual, he wasn't shy.

But at the same time, a very large portion of us were getting ones that were not only perfectly fine but damn delicious. Myself, the Ottawa Craft Beer Mafia of Joel, Matt and Ben, the Sudbury Craft Beer Mafia of Danny and... oh, I guess Stompin' Tom? And many others.

But the dissenting voices continued on, lead by not one but two Ontario Beer Writers of the Year - four-time winner Ben Johnson and last year's winner Drunk Polkaroo. Polk was on board the Good Ship Sparklepuff in his video but that's simply because he got two good ones. When he saw Steve's and other photos, he called out the lack of consistency in the beer and suggested a total recall was in order.

Okay, this was just damn funny. Ben Johnson created this
dystopian movie storyboard and solemnly intoned: "Much
to everyone's surprise, the Canadian Beer Wars started
with divisions along arbitrary distinctions of 'macro' vs
'craft' but rather, it was a disagreement triggered by a
single word that caused neighbours to take up arms
against neighbours. That word was 'Sparklepuff'." Okay,
I actually laughed out loud when I saw this. Very clever!

Johnson, know for his blunt but well-crafted technical writing style balanced with a sly and dry wit, didn't hold back. "F**k this! Chunks aren't 'normal.' Brewers: you are in the beverage-making business. No one wants chunky beverages. If you can't do hazy properly, don't try. Enough of this Sparklepuff bullshit."

Keep in mind, these are the only two people who have won Ontario Beer Writer of the Year. And they both make a valid point. This beer is $5 a can and if I got one like Steve's, I would not be a happy camper. I am not a critical person in the very least but I would rail loudly against accidentally buying a Sparklechunks.

This was Ontario Craft Beer's Sparklepuff, a pretty
clear divide between liquid and sediment. Now I did
have one like this except it sat on my table for three
hours when I nodded off during Season 4 of Gotham.
My solution? Stirred it with my finger and finished it.
Also don't take my nap as indicative of the show. It's
finally getting decent. Batman is now an older teen
and the iconic villains are actually getting dangerous.

So what happened? Why are some so great while other's are a dog's breakfast? What's at the core of this fast polarizing beverage? For these answers, we went straight to Flying Monkeys co-owner Andrea Chiodo.

Short answer? They don't know. Longer answer? Let's go. "(Manager of Brewing Operations) Sebastian's (MacIntosh) brewers have been out of their minds (over the issue.) They love this beer above all others! We have not had any cans that look like these weirder pictures and we have been buying it in different places."

Quick pause. After first buying eight Sparklepuffs while in Guelph, the remaining 24 have been from different LCBOs in the Oakville, two or four at a time, spread out over weeks now. All the same.

Back to Andrea: "I wish we did get a 'pasta barf'' or a 'fish food' one. We could get to the bottom of it. We even kept a few in our incubator, then cooled it to see if temperature was an issue. Nothing happened. Just some yeasty sediment but nothing alarming. We haven't discovered any flaw that demands a recall or anything. We have an incredible lab and the PCR (think: quality control) tests show no marker for any issues."

Telling my buddy, Danny, up in Sudbury, that I was
on Sparklepuff #30 without incident, I posted this
photo on my Twitter. Oops my bad. Flying Monkeys
immediately wanted to know, "How did you get the
prototype for Ramenpuff?" That's my little secret!

So, in essence, they're still baffled. Andrea continued, "Obviously, there are a few (nasty ones) out there, which is disturbing but it's an unfiltered, natural product." You can see the response to that by some in the Batman meme above. And when you have respected Ontario beer writers like Ben and Polk coming down hard on you, that's gonna leave a mark.

But is the damage done beyond repair? Tough to say. Obviously those who shelled out $5 for a nasty-ass one won't purchase another. However, Steve made it clear he was simply unhappy with the beer, not the brewery, stating he would stick to their Juicy Ass IPA, instead. Me? Hey, 32 straight great ones and I'm kind of the point where I'm dying to get a Sparklechunks! That's just how poorly my brain is wired. Also to my thinking, there's "I got a bad beer" angry and "Flint, Michigan still doesn't have clean drinking water but hey, I also got a bad beer" angry. I lean towards the latter.

However, Andrea made it clear that if anyone had an issue, they should contact the brewery directly through their website. Linda said she was going to do precisely that. Says Andrea, "I always joyfully reimburse anyone who is unhappy. We want everyone to be thrilled with every beer we make."

Twitter friend Brad Seftel was there for
the Sparklepuff launch at Beertown in
Waterloo, posting this pic and noting
it was still pretty damn good (like me,
he's had luck) but he prefers the cans.

As of two weeks ago when we first talked, Andrea said eight customers wanted replacements. A few others contacted them just to be sure they weren't gonna get poisoned by the brew.

So long story short, they're gonna keep trying, tweaking filters and what-have-you. She noted, "We're no social media gurus and ultimately, we have a beer to brew. And fix, too, apparently." 

But, of course, I had to know: What's it like when beer lovers are screaming for your hide over a solid weekend? She noted that, first and foremost, she felt badly for the brewers who had worked hard on and loved the project. "I tell you, though, a lot of these internet posts can make anybody feel like the unpopular 15-year-old girl who shit in the pool at her first high school party." Is it just me or is that an oddly specific example of being mortified?? (Kidding, Andrea! But if you ever wanna talk... you know.) And when the Triple IPA was kegged and sent out to Beertowns in Burlington, Cambridge, London, Waterloo and the Sociable in Brantford, Flying Monkeys not only didn't downplay the controversy, they tried to have some fun with it, noting, "DRAUGHT EXCLUSIVE at BEERTOWN! Only the best or worst beer we've ever made! Good Kitty? Bad Kitty? You decide."

Other than the Sparklechunks, if there was a slip-up on the brewery's end, it's that they didn't jump in quickly enough, opting to wait a few days before comment. Ideally, it's best to douse the social media flames when the fire is just starting.

When my Oakville friend, Kim, posted this picture of
Muskoka's Black Thunder Milkshake IPA, looking
all funky chunky, the brewery's social media rep,
Sarah, was on the matter within seconds. THAT is
how you handle a quality control issue. Quickly!!!

Or at least try to deal with them. Granted, in this case, given the astounding speed in which matters escalated, it might be considered a "Christians in the Lions' Den" scenario at best.

That said, let me point out an example of how speedily dealing with a bad beer still maintained a customer's good will. A couple of weekends back, Oakville friend, Kim R-W (she literally works up the street from me) got a pretty funky pour of Muskoka Brewing's new Black Thunder Raspberry Milkshake IPA. Trust me, ALL of mine have been a clear red (and really tasty) pours. So she posted it on Twitter and asked something like, "Is it supposed to look like this?" I immediately jumped on to respond, making sure I tagged Muskoka. Within a minute, Sarah Girdwood, the brewery's Digital Marketing Specialist (so also all social media) responded, saying, no, that looked wrong and asking Kim to contact her so they could rectify things immediately. Kim was thrilled. Sarah fixed things. All's well... But Sarah's speed on the issue? Even The Flash would have been saying, "Wait? Who the hell just ran past me?" Social media is the most instantaneous form of communication we have ever seen in the entire history of the world. You gotta take advantage of that. Sarah did. But Scooby Doo Gang, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...