2016 BCBS Chicago Release (Black Friday & Beyond)

Cracked a bottle last night and all the exclusivity has faded. You guys should save your money. It was way better last year when it had more exclusivity.

 

If you cant enjoy a beer because its not rare or limited, you are doing beer wrong. Try refreshing your perspective. Its just beer. Its either going to taste good or its not. - It wont make you a more interesting person, or help you out in life. Its just beer. Its meant to be enjoyed and shared with friends, not lauded and obsessed over.

 

If Rare were $30 I wouldn't have a problem with it not being "exclusive." When GI starts charging $60+ for 12oz of beer that is available at Target, I start to question what I am paying for. Those 35 year barrels weren't going to be of use to anyone else and can't have cost GI too much. I'd say they would practically have given them away (who else could have used that many barrels in the industry?) If one bottle of regular BCBS, which includes ingredients, labor and aging costs (storage, monitoring, temp control, etc.) costs about $15 on the high end, shouldn't Rare at worst be double the price? $30? The only costs they have at that point are another year of storage and monitoring, which can't be more than $15 a year based on the price of Reg...I think most people paying 4x or more the cost of regular, expected this to be a bit more exclusive than Regular when they paid the 4x premium...

 

I wonder how many times a day on BeerAdvocate someone feels a need to remind others "it is just beer"

 

16.9 oz

 

Well, it goes down like 12 ounces!

 

I don't think we should be considering exclusivity when we consider price, because it's a slippery slope. BCS is relatively rare (at MSRP at least); it's around (in Chicago) for a couple months, and then is gone, yet it's less expensive per ounce than some DIPA bombers (any bomber that's more than $13 is more expensive per ounce). Yeah, maybe $60 (or 70, or 80...or 130) is a little pricey, but it's priced as an "ultra-premium" beer, so you're going to be paying a premium. It also has a fancy box, and while I get that a lot of people would take the beer without the box if it meant shaving some money off, that's not how GI decided to do it, so you have to pay for the cool packaging as well.

 

Any Targets in or around the city still have bottles? Would love to pick one up today, since I'll be in the city, if possible.

 

Are people really giving someone a ton of crap for stating something we all basically know is true? Wine people have known for a while that there's a big difference between having a glass of wine on vacation in a vineyard and having the same wine at home after a rough day of work...

http://www.winespectator.com/drvinny/show/id/48948

Having Hill Farmstead after driving 4 hours in the snow to the brewery is different than having it on tap in NYC.

In the same way, building up the aura of a beer makes you approach, taste and perceive the beer differently. In a similar vein, I used to get my mind blown by beers 7 years ago that now I view as average. Have my taste buds themselves changes, has my understanding of flavor become more acute, are there simply better options out there, am I approaching beer differently now, etc.? Likely all of these factors and more are at play. The point being that a beer I had 5 years ago is "the same" beer now but "tastes" completely different to me.

Taste is just one part of a beer really, your experiences before tasting it, the mindset/perception you have about a beer are others. So yes, I can see why someone would enjoy Rare less when the "aura" is altered and you bring a different mindset to it when you drink it. Does that make it right or wrong or entitled or silly? No, it's just experience and you need to make an individual decision about whether you want to buy it again or not. I saw it plenty yesterday and passed, but others purchased it. To each their own but let's not act like holier than thou tastes masters who are completely unimpacted by the aura/hype/rarity/etc. of a beer.

 

I believe it was only Target on Elston that had Rare for sale. I stopped in to pick up a couple for a friend around 5pm yesterday and they were sold out. That said, Binny's Lincoln Park and South Loop both still have cases out on the floor.

 

Binnys south loop has 8 cases out on the floor by the bathrooms. Limit 2 per, $69.99

16 cases not 8

 

I don't disagree with you in that there are more factors than taste/smell, but I'd point out that there's a difference between returning to a beer 7 years later, and returning to a beer once you've realized it's not as "special" or "rare" as you thought. That 7 year old beer may taste "average" due to the taste comparison with other beers, whereas in the second example, it's entirely psychological (the beer hasn't been made more average by comparison to other beers, it's more average because you're not as geeked to have it). Both are expectation-based, but one is grounded in taste, the other in hype (not saying either is more or less valid, just saying they're a little different).

Either way, I don't think anyone's trying to make the argument that psychological factors don't exist, I think people are just trying to help others see the bright side and enjoy a quality beer for what it is--a quality beer with a pretty wooden box that has an artificial scent inside.

Also--I love this thread. GI has really given us a gift this year, with all the random drops of the 2016 variants, and artificial scarcity of Rare; so much more to talk/fight about!

 

I got an option to buy 15 Rare for $39 when I opened a new account at TCF bank. I chose the free toaster instead.

 

I'm surprised you guys that have such a hard on over the name "Rare" haven't gotten a class action lawsuit put in motion. Make them change the name so that the bottles that are out now, truly would be rare.

 

While checking out at Target I imagined the line was a fresh water stream in Vermont to add to the experience.

 

Whelp, ladies and gentlemen, '15 Rare is now officially a shelf-turd.

 

*eagerly awaits the Binny's email where Rare is one of the sale beers of the month*

 

If you like the beer enough to spend $60-90 on it...what's the problem?


And if Rare not being rare/hard to get, pisses you off....well, you either live a cupcake life or are just a surly mofo!

 

LOL. as someone who also visits Binnys Grand at least once a week this is pretty hilarious and spot on.