Western Red Brewing Power Wedge Porter metal containers

The reports, as CPSC published them

1. Emergency room

   Made Jan 1, 2024 · , sent to the company Jan 5, 2024 · , published by CPSC Jan 23, 2024

   The product, in the report: Powder Wedge Porter Beer in a 12 oz can from Western Red Brewing. White label on the can

   My husband and I were vacationing in [REDACTED] on October 10, 2023. At [REDACTED] on October 10, 2023 my husband got a call on his cell phone from our home alarm company [REDACTED]. The call roused us from our sleep so we did not get to the phone in time to answer it before the caller left a message and hung up. My husband got out of bed to see who had called at that time of the morning. He saw the call was from [REDACTED]. My husband called [REDACTED] immediately and they informed him that our house alarm had gone off due to breaking glass. The [REDACTED] employee also indicated that he called the [REDACTED] Sheriff’s Office, but the Sheriff’s Office refused to come to the home unless they had a video of glass actually breaking at the house or someone in the house that witnessed the breaking glass. The [REDACTED] Sheriff representative told [REDACTED] they get too many false alarms so unless there was proof, they would not respond to the alarm. My husband handed the phone to me so I could talk to the [REDACTED] employee. I asked the [REDACTED] employee what number they had called to contact the [REDACTED] Sheriff’s Office. They indicated they had called [REDACTED]. I hung up and immediately called the number I had been given for the [REDACTED] Sheriff’s Office. I explained to the dispatcher that [REDACTED] had called and the [REDACTED] Sheriff’s Office indicated they would not respond to the alarm. I informed her that we were vacationing in [REDACTED] and had no way to determine if someone was ransacking our home. She decided to dispatch a deputy to our home. The dispatcher told me she had a deputy enroute. At [REDACTED] am, I got a call from Deputy [REDACTED] He informed me he was enroute to our home and asked me some questions concerning videos or if we had cameras installed on the house. I told him we did not have cameras. He said he would go to our home and take a look around. At [REDACTED] am I received another call from Deputy [REDACTED]. He indicated we have a locked gate that provides access to our fenced backyard. He asked if there was a back trail into the property and I informed him that the entire back yard is fenced, and there were two padlocked gates, one in the front and one in the back. He told me he would try to see if he could get over the fence. Deputy [REDACTED] called my back at [REDACTED] am and informed me he might be able to climb the fence, but he had no confidence he would be able to get back out to the backyard once he had entered it. Deputy [REDACTED] asked me if anyone had a key to the gate. I told him my daughter did and that I could call her but it would take at least 20 minutes for her to arrive with the key. In the meantime, I indicated I was very stressed about someone possibly being inside ransacking my house while we waited for my daughter to show up. He asked if he could have my permission to use bolt cutters on the lock. I said yes. Deputy [REDACTED] cut the lock on the gate and proceeded into the backyard. Deputy[REDACTED] called back at [REDACTED] am indicating he had checked all the windows and the sliding glass door and found nothing unusual. My husband and I were distraught. Why would our glass-break home alarm go off for no reason? We have had the alarm system for over 20 years and this has never happened. We knew that the alarm could not be reset unless we were in the home to do it. We reasoned that if someone tried to break the glass and the alarm went off, they most likely evacuated the premises, knowing that if no one was home, the alarm would not go off if another break-in was attempted. I called [REDACTED] at 2:00 am and explained our situation and asked if there was any way for us to cut short our week-long trip and get a flight home as soon as possible. [REDACTED] got us on [REDACTED]. The expedited flight home would cost us an additional $470.79 for each ticket to get on that flight for a total of $941.58. This is in addition to the original $760.40 we paid for our original round-trip tickets. I have attached receipts for the additional cost. We were just sick all day wondering if someone was going to break in and have free rein because they knew there was no longer an alarm. We got to the [REDACTED] airport around [REDACTED] pm and got our baggage from baggage claim and proceeded to the van pick-up area. We got to [REDACTED] around [REDACTED] pm. We loaded our car and proceeded on the hour and a half journey home. The whole way home we discussed what we would do if we encountered someone in our home when we got there in the dark of night. When we got home, I told my husband I was too distraught to enter the house. He told me to leave the car running and the lights on and he would go inside to investigate. My husband came out a few minutes later indicating everything looked normal. But what made the alarm go off? We spent a sleepless night just waiting for someone to attempt another break-in. No one did. The next morning, we searched all over for what could have caused the alarm to go off. We found nothing. On October 11, 2023 around [REDACTED] pm, my husband was going to get a can of tomatoes out of the pantry and start dinner. When he looked in the pantry, he noticed one of the Western Red Brewing Powder Wedge Porter beer cans had exploded in the cupboard. This explosion took place in the pantry and the alarm sensor for breaking glass is on the same wall. We realized that the exploding beer can was the cause of the alarm being tripped. My husband noticed that there were a few other beer cans that looked swollen and misshapen. He got them out of the cupboard and handed them to me. I put the three cans in the kitchen sink. I opened the pop top on the first swollen can and drained the beer down the sink. When I started to open the pop top on the next beer, it exploded like a bomb in my hand. Blood and dark porter beer were splattered all over my kitchen ceiling, walls, appliances, and floor. I noticed a lot of blood coming from the cuts on my hand and tried to put pressure on them to stop the bleeding. It did not work. We decided to get in the car and drive to the [REDACTED]. I went inside and was taken to the back. The doctor cleaned out the injured fingers and stitched them closed. We drove back home and my husband began cleaning up the horrible mess. My husband found another can of this beer in our refrigerator, and put it out on the patio. It exploded the next day. The next morning at [REDACTED] am I contacted Western Red Brewery in Poulsbo, Washington to inform them of the exploding beer can issue. I have attached the [REDACTED] conversation. Western Red Brewery asked where I purchased the beer (Total Wine in [REDACTED]) and indicated they would send their sales representative out to Total Wine to talk to them about having expired product on the shelf. I expressed my fear to Western Red Brewing that more of this exploding beer could be on shelves in many retail outlets and I asked how they were going to ameliorate this problem. I did not hear back from Western Red Brewing. I called attorney [REDACTED] She indicated that she needed to make sure Western Red Brewery was not a client of their Poulsbo office before she could talk to me. She called back and assured me Western Red Brewing was not one of their clients. I went over the entire story including all the details from the very beginning. [REDACTED] told me she had to talk with one of her colleagues to determine if there was action I could take to mandate Western Red Brewing to issue a warning to their vendors and customers of the extremely dangerous situation with their Powder Wedge Porter Beer, clean out all remaining beer from the bad batch, and cover my additional airline costs. [REDACTED] called me back and told me she had made an error and that Western Red Brewing was one of their clients so she could not take my case. I messaged Western Red Brewing and asked them to provide the manufacture date and expiration date of the beer in addition to providing a list of the retail outlets they had sold the beer to. Western Red Brewing got back to me and indicated they had been advised to send my questions over to their insurance carrier. They asked for my contact information and I gave them my name and email address. I have tried reaching out to Western Red Brewing multiple times since, and they are not answering. I am very concerned about others that may be in imminent danger from these exploding cans. The accident I had could have been much worse. It will be worse for some other unsuspecting customer or retailer. Western Red Brewing should be mandated to issue an urgent statement notifying customers and retailers of this horrific issue. As a side note, I purchased the Western Red Brewery Powder Wedge Porter Beer from Total Wine in [REDACTED] on August 22, 2023. I put two cans in the refrigerator, and four in the pantry. The cans began exploding on October 10, 2023. I called Total Wine on October 19 and spoke with manager [REDACTED] (no last name provided). I told her the whole story and she apologized and offered to refund my money. I explained that would be fine, but the bigger issue is to get that exploding beer destroyed and to notify customers who purchased it of the immediate danger. She told me she thought they might have gotten rid of the beer they had. I am not confident in her answer and fear someone else is in grave danger. Please help me to get this resolved. I am not sleeping because I am worried about people getting hurt for no reason. Especially when Western Red Brewing could do some research and locate the dangerous beer cans and get this resolved. Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

   Model

   NA

   UPC

   NA

   Serial number

   NA

   Bought from

   Total Wine Silverdale, WA

   Bought

   Aug 22, 2023

   Where

   Bremerton, Washington: Home/Apartment/Condominium

   Who was involved

   Age 67, Female

   The reporter’s relation to them

   Self

   As this report names them

   Brand Western Red Brewing Power Wedge Porter, made or sold by Western Red Brewing

   How badly, in CPSC’s words

   Injury, Emergency Department Treatment Received

CPSC’s disclaimer

Sources