'16 Bourbon County Lineup

This may be true in the land of beer geek shit-shows, but I assure you it is not like this everywhere.

 

As far as lining up early for this, I have no doubt you're correct. But, in general he was talking about (or at least I think...perhaps shouldn't speak for him) about BCBS is one of the most popular releases (BA releases especially) nationwide. Find another highly acclaimed beer that gets such wide distribution and sells out so quickly. I know there are pockets of the country where it sits, which is truly puzzling by GI since there are so many pockets where it gets gobbled up so quickly that people can't get as much as they would like.

 

Seems I'm reading a lot of similar comments: "we're getting half of what we got last year".

Is production way down? Distro increased to more of the country?

 

Reports coming in from FoBab on Untappd that Prop this year is pretty bad.

 

We live in a weird world where a beer with a rating over 4.0 on average is considered to have a bad rating.

 

Near impossible, like every year.

 

per Top Hops (who is as legit GI source as anyone), the "Rye" variants were not ready for release. They have a 2 case (?) limit on regular + 2 bottles for barleywine. some stray vintage bottles, no coffee

mb they should stop experimenting so much and just do the recipes from years past that people love. Cherry, Backyard, Vanilla, Etc

b/c Regal Rye was considered a step down and whatever they did this year might even be a complete bust

Q: So, there isn’t a national Rye variant?
A: Due to Goose Island's increased QA methods, they decided to focus on original this year. The barrels they intended for Rye this year weren’t ready for extraction when they tasted them, so those are continuing to age.

Q: Why are there fewer variants?
A: They scaled back variants to focus on our quality assurance methods

 

At the risk of being ridiculed to "read the thread," any news on Goose Island sponsored Bourbon County Black Friday release locations. In years past I've seen lists of cities and locations to have GI reps on site.

Haven't seen anything this year. Anyone have that info?

 

CO received much less than last year. Some stores that got 5 cases of regular along w/ at least a case each of Regal and Rare received zero this year. Even the big stores so far gotonly 20% of what they did last year and no variants.
One person mentioned some form of bottling snafu? No idea. So unless there's a subsequent shipments, there's going to be lots of people, myself included, with no '16 BCBS.

 

Cant believe theyre not getting any coffee this year. Bad news for other shops as well.

 

So stopped by my regular bottle shop to get the scoop and he said his distributor (SE MI) got 1/3 of what they got last year. Purely rumor I'm sure, but said a bunch was infected (and presumably dumped). This sucks. Don't know yet if all accounts will get a lot lower volume or if some will get a little less and others shut out completely.

 

Well, better than bottling and selling the infected beer. You hate to see BCS dumped, but maybe it means they stepped up their quality assurance process. Also, with the flash pasteurization, I thought infection wasn't nearly as possible? (I'll admit, I know nothing about how that works.)

 

I don't know much about it either other than reading all the posts earlier in the year. And I don't remember if there was an officially identified source of the infection. If the barrels were infected, my theory is that, assuming that they empty one years bcs then pretty much fill them back up with the next years, then 16 bcs was sitting in infected barrels before anyone knew anything about the infection. Pretty sure I saw that 17 is in barrels now for next year. Soo....this years dump could still maybe be carryover from last years infection issues. Once they figured out the magnitude of the problem (regular bcs refunds), it was too late to get more in barrels and end up with the same quality of product. My theory only of course.

 

There are people more qualified then me to answer, but my guess is if the infection is happening while the beer is in the barrels then flash pasteurizing right before bottling won't help. I'm sure they sample each barrel and if infection is present they dump it.

 

I guess if we really want it, the best bet is to watch for it on tap. Last year at least two taprooms in Sioux Falls had it, and one of them had it twice. I've heard that tap is limited this year too, and South Dakota may only get 3-4 kegs. One taproom is advertising they'll have it Black Friday.

 

you shouldn't be surprised. regular Barleywine apparently is in 1st fill barrels this year not the 1-2-3 process (re-use of emptied BCBS barrels). this might be met with the same disbelief, but it's another strong indicator last year's issue was in fact barrel related. it sounds like they tossed all emptied barrels which makes the 1-2-3 process impossible, which in turn means no King (Whoever).

remember GI's highly anticipated 2011/2 Wheat variant? eerily, the underlined portion of your quote is almost word for word the provided explanation for the Wheat variant's delay that year. "not ready" many months later evolved to "very disappointing" & the variant never saw standard release. hopefully history doesn't repeat itself here.

 

I was really bummed to read this, so just checked GI's website and you are correct (unfortunately)...

"Aged in the second-use barrels that were once home to Kentucky bourbon, this traditional English-style barleywine possesses the subtlety of flavor that only comes from a barrel that’s gone through many seasons of ritual care..."

 

For those in London, ~8 cases of regular will be available this year on Black Friday. Happy queuing!

 

Can't believe it but I'm back at west side market in NYC and they still have plenty bottles of 2016.

That means they've lasted a full week at least on shelves

 

Its fantastic. idk if its a better beer but its a much better barleywine.