Bourbon County Rare bottle count

After talking with a Bourbon County Rep, I was told it was close to 70K bottles total

 

After speaking in very low voices in close quarters among only those who are in the know and who took an oath of secrecy, I was told unequivocally and in complete confidence that the precise number of Rare bottles is: "Shitloads."

 

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/goose-island-rare.343999/

 

It's safe to say the bottle count has extremely highly, take a look at the trade forums. A place in NC was selling Rare by the damn case for $850. The distribution was scattered across a entire country, that doesn't make it rare.

 

I know this is just an estimate but this figure assumes zero was kegged which we know is not true.

 

Per Jared Jankowski - Zero was kegged.

 

It was though. They had 1/6 bbls at FOBAB.

 

Ha. Well then he lied to my friend

 

My impression that it was kegged solely for the Grit and Grain video tour, top flight festivals and events at the barrel warehouse. I could be wrong though.

 

Your last point is critical. It was spread out across the country. I agree that there were a lot of bottles but the anecdotes about little random places selling it by the case don't prove that it was "easy" to get by any means. They just mean you could luck out in some places.

 

I wasn't there for the actual "tapping" but GI Clybourn had it as part of their Black Friday for 5 oz pours. Looked like all their timed releases were set up to come out of the same tap so I'd say some Rare had to have been kegged unless they figured out how to work the math properly for that extra 1.9 oz from each bottle.

 

It had to have been draft. There's no reason to waste all of that glass.

 

Too many if you asked me. For those of you who have been around long enough to remember, Rare wasn't going to be made again after the 2010 batch. Here's a link to the article from BeerPulse:

http://beerpulse.com/2010/07/goose-island-rare-bourbon-county-brand-stout-label-approved/

Here is an excerpt from that article:

"We don’t yet know how ‘rare’ that Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout will actually be but each bottle will be individually numbered which is only a small hint. [Update: Per Goose Island’s Greg Hall, the beer is aged in 43 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrels for two years with an expected yield of 7,000-8,000 bottles. The beer will be available in Chicago and New York though other markets are up in the air. Given that information, that probably takes this beer out of “whale” status but that is still very limited availability.]

Per the label, “This stout was aged for two years in the finest old barrels Goose Island has used it its 18 years of Bourbon Barrel-aging beers. A true rarity – savor and share it only with those you hold dear, as it will never be made again.”

 

the rare in 23 pappy barrels technically never was made again
60,000 sounds about right for rare 2.0 and i'm glad that's the case

 

So here is where the magic happens.... Does anyone realize that GI basically created 100+ "local" bottle releases out of 1 giant bottle release?

It does not sound like a lot of people do (though some do), because people are taking the Macro view.

Please don't get hung up on the exact numbers here, as no one knows if they are accurate, but the premise goes like this:

Assume 60,000 bottles
Assume 100 cities get allocation (we can squabble about some getting more and some getting less, and the exact number of cities, but lets go with averages here and keep the numbers round)

That would mean that there are 600 bottles (on average) released to each city. Starting to sound familiar with your local bottle releases? Only difference is, you don't have a leg up on people from the rest of the cities for trading because they had their own limited bottle release as well.

Also, everyone is taking the name Rare too literally when it comes to availability (versus the barrels used.... read the back of the slip cover on the box folks). I'm sure many will claim they were being sarcastic with their comments about the number of bottles.