Bourbon County Coffee 2015 - Gusher?

Well, BCBBW goes into the last year's BCBS barrels, so that's definitely a different year of barrels than this year's stout. I don't know exactly how they do the stout variants. Rare was obviously very different barrels as well.

 

Yes... looking like a fool is certainly a terrible thing...

 

This is why nobody respects the Beer Advocate forums. All of the inexperienced people group up as if they know anything and push away the veteran.

 

FWIW: I buy a bag of freshly roasted Intelligentsia beans each and every week and have sampled/tasted much of their offerings. I would say 75% of the coffee I've had from them tends to carry a "fruity" character of sorts to it so I understand people that do not drink their coffee all that much would not anticipate such a taste coming from coffee.

 

Had one two nights ago. 17/Sep/15 1538. It was great. I've kept at 46-48 degrees since I purchased it.

 

Batch 28,00, dated 8/30/15 is a bit sour, very fruity and a tad salty. Tastes like they dumped salt and dried cherries in here. Purple label. Overall it is excellent and makes me feel regal, like a pug in a tuxedo t-shirt.

 

stop ryening

 

Let it finish and warm, got a lot more tartness and carbonation at the end, pretty sure it was infected, but not as bad as others.

 

For some reason their hotline number of 1-800-gooseme makes me giggle. What a childish thing.

 

I'm enjoying it...it's making the day go by quicker.

 

based on some details, it sounds like they used barrels obtained from multiple distillers. whether specific distillers were separated to hold specific variants is not known but probably is unlikely.

what we can figure out is this: obviously Regal Rye required the use of rye barrels. so we know they didn't all use the same brand or batch or however you want to classify the group of barrels in some sort of sibling fashion. the rye barrels would not be from the same distillation as the bourbon barrels, that much we don't need to be employees to deduce. we also are able to lock down the fact that Rare utilized 35 year old Heaven Hill barrels, which again points to a conclusion the barrels across all variants were NOT all sibling barrels in that regard as well.

 

This tidbit about BCBBW going into last year's barrels is interesting, and right away pushed my amateur assumptions (I have no clue about large scale brewing processes, specifically about GI's BA program) that a problem lied in the bottling aspect of things! I do however understand that due to the nature of brewing, infection issues could coincidentally arise to be fair... throwing out my assumptions, lol.

Right. So we know Rare, Rye, and BW used different barrels for sure. The question is did BCBS use the *same barrels as BCBCS this year? If not, hmmmmmm......

I know this thread has went off the rails a little, but a thread like this has more power than we think. Type "infected Bourbon County" into your search bar, and see what happens ...there is no way that GI/AB/INBEV doesn't address these issues officially. Bourbon County could be considered their "craft" flagship, their jewel, their beast to infiltrate even the most hardcore anti-big-brewing proponents (many of us).

 

If the infection came from the barrels, wouldn't the beer have tasted off going into the bottle? It seems strange an infection would start in the barrel but not affect the beer until after it's packaged. You'd have to imagine it occurred when the beer was racked to the bright tanks or when it was packaged. If no kegs come up infected then you'd have to limit it to the bottling line.

 

I like your thinking.

 

On a related note, for any microbiologists in the crowd: Would the sea salt in Regal inhibit possible infection? (What level of salinity is needed to discourage bacterial growth?)

 

i don't think that's a lock. here's my thoughts on that. it seems like an infection increases over time. it also generally increases more rapidly when the temperature is warmer.

so i would assume GI kept the barrels at optimal temps, bottled the beers... but your distributor, truck driver & store maybe showed it warmer temps, & then maybe you've been storing them in your heated apartment/home. there's a good chance the beer didn't taste off during bottling, (regardless of whether it's a barrel issue or not) but certainly could taste off months later (whether the issue begins with barrels or not). both time & possible exposure to accelerates may have occurred.

 

It could- but the amounts in the beer would have to be pretty high, enough you'd find yourself with an excessively briney beer.

 

And for those that want to continue derailing this thread- carry it on elsewhere. You're not adding to the discussion of the issues at hand.

 

BCBCS was Fools Gold this year! It appears like some of the bottles were infected but others not. That happens with such high volume. Besides GI, there hasnt been too many companies to brew such a haul. I can think of High Westified and Sunday Morning Stout.

 

Some would taste off before bottling. However, infection can lie deep in the wood and not grow strong enough to be noticable or even detectable by lab testing for it until after the beer has been bottled and aged some (i.e., shipped and sold). There's also a lot of vibration/agitation taking place during shipping after bottling that can speed up process and cause a very small set of bacteria, etc. to speed up their growth. The bottles we buy would have had much more agitation than any bottles kept in reserve at the brewery for later testing so the infection could show up in our bottles before it does in theirs.

Basically the growth curve can be sort of like having a mouse in your house. During the right season of the year you have only one pregnant female mouse. After the pups are born you'll have several mice (gestation is about 29 days). And if those pups get mature enough to mate and produce offspring you may soon have 100s of mice in your house before you realize it.