2016 BCBS Chicago Release (Black Friday & Beyond)

You would also have to consider if you want to grab the BCBS close to the entrance and run, venture into the middle for the VR right by the weapons cache, or split the difference and get the BA Prairie.

 

Lots of Binny's talk -- I live 15-20 min from two different Binny's so it isn't easy to swing by to become a familiar face.

Luckily the local Garfield's in Crystal Lake has a great selection of beers and is only a few minutes away. The experiences you've all shared at your various Binny's -- I haven't had that here. The beer guys hang by the bar inside and are always willing to help. I've never felt like they were holding back something when I asked.

They had a smaller BCBS release where they gave raffle tickets out (limit 1 reg, 1 variant per person). I know some folks aren't too happy with places like Jewel getting BCBS, but hopefully it means smaller places like this will be getting larger stock in future releases. I'd much rather spend my money in my community anyway.

For what it's worth, as of Monday, they still had a case of Rare left sitting on the bar.

 

All these future scenarios are grate, but when I become rich and famous I'm just going to go straight to the distributor so I won't have to play these games anymore. I'll sit like an aristocrat, beer in hand watching as all the people elbow grandma's in walkers for the 'latest' bottle of Prop.

 

I think The Thirsty Games refers to a competition between BA posters' significant others when us BAers are out hunting for whalez

 

Ha, right?

I don't mind giving my best contact at Binny's something. My guy up here wasn't able to score any Black Note this year and he'd never had Dark Lord - I happened to have an extra 2014 DL and was able to score multiple Black Note B2 this year, so I gave them to him. I don't see that as bribery, and hopefully he didn't either...just generosity and being thankful for him hooking me up here and there

 

I can't help, but feel most people are utterly clueless about the sheer amount of non-stop crap that most Binny's employees deal with on a day in/day out basis ...

 

There is no question that they have to deal with an enormous amount of crap. And for this reason alone I have no problem with employees getting dibs on limited releases. Having said this, that there are VIP customers (at essentially the beer manager's discretion) who get a cut of the store's allocation of limited to highly limited beers is slightly absurd imo. But then again craft beer has become increasingly absurd over the years so maybe it is not unexpected.

 

Loyalty goes both ways. I have no problem if someone who buys a lot of beer gets rewarded when a beer manager holds product for him or her. The problem is that everyone feels a sense of entitlement when it comes to every highly sought after beer where quantities are limited. For most, it's probably the only thing in the store that they've come in to buy, and probably only the second or third time that they've been there in as many months.

As I said, these guys put up with so much non-sense over beer it's not even funny. I remember what Beth at Binny's Grand went through one November when that store got one measly case of FW Anniversary. People took to social media accusing her of hoarding it for herself because . . . wait for it . . . 6 beers didn't last into the afternoon for the usual truck chasers.

With any limited release, you would still get the same people showing up and buying out all of the same beers. There used to be the same 8-10 guys that went from Binny's Downers, to Binny's Glen Ellen, to Binny's Oak Brook (to what we always affectionately referred to as the "Beermuda Triangle") on their lunch hour for every limited release. One of the buyers got sick of it, and held some back until the end of the day. They went CRAZY. It's reasons like this where most Binny's employees were ordered to stop tweeting about the releases. But that didn't seem to solve the problem.

You're always going to have customers who have most-favored-nation status. Whether it's at Binny's or West Lakeview or anywhere, it doesn't (and shouldn't) matter. Again, loyalty is a two-way street. And nothing about beer makes it special or immune.

But regardless, you're always going to have dissatisfied customers, and then the ad hominems start to fly where employees earning minimum wage are accused of being dishonest or, worse, like we've seen here, criminal (with people calling for investigations).

Ladies and gentlemen: beer.

 

People who take to social media to bitch about the fact that weren't able to get the beer that they wanted:

The worst people.

 

See this is a misconception. It has *nothing* to do with how much beer someone buys. VIP status is at the whim of the beer manager.

I recall a similar issue with Grand re: a PW BA beer. There is no question that beer chasers are a terrible blight on the craft beer community (add them to resellers, flippers, line cutters, etc). But is the solution to allow the beer manager to dole out beers to friends of the program? I don't think so anyway.

 

LOL, the best beer advocates should try to make converts out of the beer guys at Binny's. Maybe after I'm done with that I'll stop by my local convent and ask whether they've heard about a certain Jewish carpenter.

 

Re: the bolded, Goose definitely marketed the beer in 2010 based on actual scarcity, and not just process/materials.

http://gapersblock.com/drivethru/2010/11/24/a_black_friday_indeed_for_goose_island/

And, of course, the bottles were hand-numbered, which is basically a way of screaming HEY GUYS WE DIDN'T MAKE MANY OF THESE!

According to Josh Noel, Goose made 255 barrels (as a unit of measure, not bourbon barrels) of 2015 Rare. If that were put into 22 ounce bottles like 2010 was, that would amount to 46,734 bombers. In the 16.9 ounce bottles actually used, that's 60,837 bottles. So, you're talking roughly six times the volume of Rare produced last time and 7.5 times the number of individual units sold, at nearly double the MSRP as last time (scaled for volume, a 22-ounce bomber of 2015 Rare would have an MSRP of about $78, 2010 was $42.99). And this recent version of Rare was aged in barrels that I think most would consider to be less special and less likely to result in a truly stellar end product, when you're comparing 23 year Pappy barrels to accidentally discarded 35 year-old Heaven Hill barrels, the little remaining contents of which had turned excessively tannic. I would imagine (and admit this is total speculation) that the 23 year Pappy barrels would be harder to obtain and more expensive.

Anyway, I'm not a believer in buying rare beer for rareness' sake, because scarcity has basically no relationship to quality, but it's pretty apparent that this most recent batch of Rare is more "unique" than rare, as most people would understand that term, and frankly a lesser beer for a higher price than the last go-around.

 

Given that the barrels used for Rare this time contained small amounts of a whiskey that was not suitable for consumption, it would probably be difficult to do. Plus, regular BCBS aged in their own bourbon barrels and would have its own spirits-type quality from that process.

 

Mods, can we please change the name of this thread to "Bitching about Binny's".

An alternative title would be "Loyalty, Entitlement, and Other Feels: The Eternal Struggle of the Neckbeard".

 

I wasn't in the "craft beer game" in 2010, so I'll admit to knowing nothing about GI's marketing of the original Rare, but I'm not surprised that they marketed it as rare. I'm mostly going off of the physical box itself, which makes reference to the barrel-aging + rarity of the barrels they used, and saying that I could understand GI tying the 2015 product to the original in that way (double-aged + "rare(er)" barrels).

I'm definitely not trying to imply that the two are equally rare, and while I think people worship at the shrine of Pappy too much, I agree that the PVW barrels were probably more costly, not to mention of a higher quality (I'd imagine the fact that Pappy is a wheated bourbon also affected the taste of OG Rare), so that's definitely a point to be made.

At the end of the day, I'm willing to chalk the cost of the bottle up to it being a very unique BCS product as you said, so whether it's as tasty as the original is secondary to me (also, I've only had one bottle of OG, in 2015, and it didn't quite blow me away the way I expected, despite still being fantastic).

Also, I hate to be that asshole, but...I really like the stupid box it comes in.

 

I bought my first Rare in March of last year (went to a tap takeover where they were selling a case) and drank it on Thanksgiving. It was too good to pass up so I just bought two more bottles. If I had the cash sitting around to buy a full case, you better believe I would. It's absolutely delicious.

 

I'm my opinion there's far better beer I would rather spend my money on than another Rare. Did not enjoy it as much the second time around. But that's just personal preference.

 

There's a lot more going on in this thread. A LOT.

 

Supposedly Binnys at Diversy and Pulaski got VR today. Put out a case on the floor. Are we seeing more of this or just a late drop?