Chicago Stout Releases (2018)

Not a thing. I left the house minutes after I had seen Jangoons post. Didn't help that I'm in the sloop and 90 is always crap.

 

Someone smuggle me out some Shamrock! That looks goooood

 

Well Hailstorm starts at 11 and this is noon. So my wish upon a star is that I start off at Hailstorm and jet over to Imperial Oak by noon.

 

So my friend brought his over tonight. 2016, bottle #1211 on back. First, there was a funky looking collection of brown "stuff" on the neck . Buddy who homebrews said it very likely could be from the bottle conditioning, but wasn't sure. Second, once I took the cage off, barely a twist and the cork almost shot out. So I rushed over and opened over the sink. No gusher, but this beer had way more head than any BA stout should have. Think champagne, but the head just sat and didn't dissipate. Nose had a bit of sour, bit of roastiness, not a ton of barrel. Ultimately as it warmed up, we actually finished it. Decided that it was either starting to show signs of infection, or just not a really great BA stout, or both...or maybe our palates were thrashed from the couple of DIPA's we drank prior. We were trying to keep an open mind about it. There were also lots of weird, big, chunky floaties in the bottom of my glass, which got the last pour of it. So it got finished. We were not wowed. To provide a counter point, we drank a Drago '16 immediately after to see if it was our palates. It was not. Drago was far superior and tasted like a proper BA stout. Pretty sure you'll want to keep this one in the fridge if you bought one as we were pretty certain it's turning. I still have my bottle. It does not have the collection on the neck of the bottle from tonight that you see in the picture below. You can also see the stuff on the cork. Anyone know if this is a byproduct of bottle conditioning, or something else?

 

Just left Hailstorm. The bottles are 20 each, limit 5. Literally no one in line

 

Think it will last till this evening?

 

If it continues like this, definitely. But I would imagine that there will be an upswing of people after everyone's done trying to get DLD tickets.

 

For those looking to hit Imperial Oak for the BA milk stout release, bottle count is 548, about 75 people here, limit four. You may have some time. As usual with their releases, many variants on tap.

 

Also at Imperial Oak. No line, seems like plenty left and great food inside

 

Off topic of DLD tickets and other releases this weekend, but are there any shops semi near (less than 30ish min) from Lincolnshire with Rare still available? Called all the Binny's within that radius as suggested without any luck. Pm if you know of any! Thanks, cheers!

 

Anyone at hailstorm, still bottles?

 

Would love to know this too.

 

I'm from the area and chances are you will not find any.

 

Was there now hour ago. Plenty of bottles of the barrel aged vanilla vlad. The tappings are what was great though. They had orange stratus/pear nimbus which were great but now likely kicked. Really cool environment though.

 

So that BA Vanilla Vlad is awesome! I was hoping the vanilla wouldn't overpower the bourbon as much as the coffee did on the last release, but it's a perfect balance of the two. I thought about trading away most of the bottles I bought, but I may just keep them after opening my first.

 

Pretty happy to hear this. Glad I made it out there yesterday.

 

350 brewing has a near 10% coffee porter on draft right now called I Hate Mondays. It is outstanding, and the 32oz Crowlers are at great deal at $14. (and the burgers are darn good too!)

 

Did you include Skokie in that call radius? They had 2+ cases for the longest time (referenced several times, even pretty recently, in this thread). Right off of 94 too.

 

I'll second this. Opened one yesterday and we thought it was great. Did remind me a bit of Madagascar, but not so vanilla forward. And not so in your face like coffee was. Definitely a keeper.

 

Yep having Vanilla Vlad now and it's as good as Jangoon24 touted it.