Recalling the recall of my beer

What would Homer do?

I thought of Homer Simpson, and his overindulging love of Duff beer, when I was faced this week with the recall of my six-pack of Samuel Adams beer. It turns out the six-pack of Summer Ale bottles I had purchased at my local Hannaford's over the weekend was part of a national recall because of bits of glass that might be mixed in with the beer.

The voluntary recall by the folks at Sam Adams caught my eye in a story posted on Boston.com I read after returning home from work on Monday, just before I was going to crack a beer to drink as I made dinner. I had just purchased my beer a couple of days before, and I couldn't imagine that the lot numbers on the bottle would match. I was shocked, frankly, when the lot numbers in the recall notice matched the lot numbers on my bottles.

No recall has ever affected me. But I was pretty excited -- I was part of a national consumer alert, one that made headlines and was being featured on the nightly newscasts.

The company created a web site specifically to address the recall. Its statement said:

"During a routine bottle inspection at one of our breweries, we detected possible defects in a small percentage of bottles resulting in the random presence of bits of glass, most the size of grains of sand, but some small slivers in some bottles as well. Based on this sample, we quickly began testing bottles of Samuel Adams at all of our breweries and identified that the problem appeared to be isolated to a single glass plant of the five that supply us.

"We assembled a panel of food safety, medical and packaging experts including a medical doctor who have thoroughly evaluated the samples. People who bite or swallow a fragment could possibly be injured. While the possibility of injury to an individual consumer is very low and the Company has had no reports of any injury, we do know that the risk is not zero, so we are voluntarily recalling all products in bottles from this specific glass plant that we believe could possibly be affected. While we believe that the number of bottles that actually contain glass is significantly less than 1% of the bottles we are recalling, we are taking this measure to protect the safety of our drinkers."

I have to be honest. In the spirit of Homer Simpson, the thought of pouring six bottles of beer down the drain was abhorrent. So I did what any thoughtful beer-drinking individual would do -- I went looking for a strainer.

How bad could it be? Sam Adams said the glass particles only affected about 1 percent of the suspect bottles. What were the chances? I could strain the beer into a glass, catch the offending glass, if any, and be good to go.

I called the wife. Did we have a strainer or something that I could use as a filter? I'm sure she thought it had something to do whatever I was cooking for dinner, and she guided me to some cheese cloth in the lazy susan. It was when I explained the purpose of my filtering needs did I get the dope slap of reality from the woman who pledged her love for me for richer or poorer, for dumb or dumber: Under no circumstances should I attempt to strain my beer of possible shards of glass.

She bought me a substitute six-pack on the way home -- no Sam Adams, at least for now, and later in the evening I applied on-line for my refund and poured the suspect beer (whimper) down the drain.

Homer would have found a way to drink his recalled beer, even as bits of glass were burrowing into his intestines. But smarter heads prevailed in my beer episode. Even though ... I bet if I had used the coffee filter I would have had a shot.