2014 Bourbon County Brands release - Chicagoland

I very much enjoy this post. I can count the number of people I have heard in lines talking about how they have 4+ Prop and 4+ vanilla and are probably good, but are still in line ahead of a bunch of people that have gotten nothing (including myself) or just a 4 pack of regular.

The Chicago beer scene has become just such a massive fail.

 

Me too!! Welcome back, us!

There was a very long post earlier today from Jegross explaining his actions at Walgreens the other morning. I had a long serious post that wasn't rude and it was deleted. Honest.

BCBS is a delicious beer and I don't understand the desire to buy a case of each variant purely to trade it often for less delicious, though not available in this market, beer.

Good luck on the hunt, those of you who wish to drink this wonderful beverage.

 

Weird, because in the Strange Brews podcast, Brett Porter and Mike Siegel talk about it being in the barrels... unless I misheard. Plus, we know that fruit gets stuffed in barrels for the wild ales and they need to centrifuge it out.

Different methods for different adjuncts?

 

Fav part from the walgreens post today was "some one else did it first"

 

My favorite was "you guys would have done the same"

 

i missed the post. did someone try to justify cajoling someone into selling early?

 

Where is the Walgreens thread? I would like to read that...

 

Yeah I couldn't tell if it was a reference to that or not, given in what force the beer trolls seem to be out this time of year.

 

It's on the chicago beer facebook group. If you aren't a member, I don't recommend joining as 90% of the people in that group are the problem with this hobby.

 

80 people deep at 5:30am at Whole Foods? Chicago has gone full jackass mode this year. I hope they only had a case of Prop.

 

2 cases Prop & 2 cases of Vanilla. 48 got a bomber. Some waited since 3am. Cray cray

 

last year, the bomber counts were about 20 cases of each.

 

it was someone justifying why he exploited walgreens employees and screwed over the people that actually showed up at a reasonable time (considering it was meant to be a noon release)

 

Do we know final counts for what LP Binny's got? Given that everyone got significantly less than last year (Walgreens notwithstanding), it seems like that particular Binny's got the lion's share.

 

I haven't taken a pulse, lately, of any of the other regional forums, but are we (the Great Lakes forum) the only one that's become so nasty? With all of the villains and "heroes" I feel like we've devolved into the WWF/WWE.

 

Over 300 people attempted to join the group in the week leading up to the release of Bourbon County. In other weeks leading up to that, the average hovers around 5-10. There appear to be a good number of folks not in the group that seem to want to become a part of that "90%".

 

Definitely different methods for different adjuncts. For things like vanilla, cinnamon, cacao nibs, peppers, it's a good idea to make a tincture (soak them separately in neutrally flavored alcohol for a month or so) and then add a bit at a time at bottling until it tastes as intended. Simply adding the adjuncts direct has potential to give wildly different outcomes based on how fresh the ingredients are, the pH of the fermenting wort, temperature and many other factors.

With fruit additions (especially in wild ales) you want the fermenting wort in direct contact with the fruit. You can technically make extract from the fruits and add it at bottling, but you're also extracting sugars from these fruits. You want these sugars to be consumed by the saccharomyces and wild bugs while they're hanging out in the barrel so that any CO2 produced is able to offgas rather than building up pressure in the bottle.

Regarding 2013 prop, I'll admit I was simply speculating about where the coconut addition was made. I guess it could also make sense if coconut was added directly to the barrels considering how widely the resultant beer varied. Considering how much of a pain in the ass it would be to get beer out of barrels that are also filled with a bunch of coconut shards, I would personally err on the side of adding to taste at bottling. Not to mention, you're going to lose a lot of your liquid to absorption with a direct addition; lastly, those barrels with coconut in them are pretty much unusable afterward unless you want to produce a beer that vaguely tastes of coconut.

 

I feel like the big issue is how much of a clusterfuck BCBS (and really, "hot" Chicago releases in general) has become. There's much more animosity than usual around this one, and as a result, everyone is pissed off and looking for people to blame. I'm not saying that people aren't to blame, or shouldn't be blamed, but I don't hear this kind of animosity coming from Darkness Day, or hell, even Dark Lord day. BCBS '14 has been chaotic as hell, so a lot of people are on edge (as on edge as you can be, worrying about beer).

 

I think you mean "heels" and "faces".

I initially came to BA, to this thread specifically, just to find out where to score BCBS without dealing with lines, waitlists, etc. I succeeded, but created an account & stuck around because a) I didn't want to feel like a mooch, and b) I liked what I saw, in terms of community & all the shared info. Hopefully that's enough to keep me out of the aforementioned 90%.

 

Last year's BCBS release was when the group jumped from 150 members to 2,000 members in a week, but that doesn't really bother me. Joining a group to find out where to get BCBS is not what I meant when saying "90%". That was directed at hoarders, line cutters, mules, resellers, etc... Everyone joining the hobby should experience BCBS and joining a group to find it is a good thing!

My point is we should be spreading the wealth to others (see: advocate, enthusiast) and not taking advantage for our own gain. There are also some great people in that group that I would (and have) buy a beer for at a bar. However, the vast majority show little to no respect for others, which is what sickens me. Is that wrong in the legal sense of the word? No, but Chicago Craft Beer Capitalists would be a much more appropriate name.