Sixpoint to release Bourbon Barrel aged 3beans....

Oh trust me, I know. I just landed myself a new lucrative job up here though, so if I have pay exorbitant shipping costs from a website to get my hands on this, I just might do it!!

Now, on the topic of BCBS vs this, I'm not even going touch the AB/In-Bev angle, and Shane's covered a wide variety of other reasons, but one I've not seen come up that's surely got to be the case is BALANCE. Bourbon County tastes good. Sure. But it's a total palate-demolishing BOMB of a stout. Personally, I drink one and I don't want another for a LONG time. BA 3beans on the other hand, the abv, I'm assuming, isn't 14-15% and is probably closer to 10.5 or 11%. That assumption tells me the sweetness will be more balanced, the body will have better carbonation support, and so on. I love imperial stouts and imperial porters, they are by far my favorite styles, but for me more is not always more. Beyond 11% an or so, all of the highly acclaimed imperial stouts I've tried from the breweries out west here have been tasty stuff but ultimately left me craving something I could actually drink and enjoy every day. BCBS doesn't and could never so that for me, but I'd be willing to be BA 3Beans would be a beer I could drink with dinner or after very, very often. /essay

 

@Sixpoint You know you guys want to do "666Beans" (add some "chile" beans )

 

Not sure what you were smoking when you wrote this, but...

I'd buy a pack of 3Beans over BCBS every day. As @BradenMK stated as I was writing this post, the latter is great if you want a bourbon syrup slap in the face (which I also sometimes do, don't get me wrong, but there are other non-ABI options for that), but the new 3Beans has more nuance, and the flavors are better layered. It's also something you can drink without feeling a need for an insulin boost afterwards.

As I've been brewing more beer myself, and being able to taste more of what exceptional brewers can make, the word that repeatedly comes to mind is elegant: delicately bold flavors and aromas that don't destroy your senses, exceptional balance where no ingredient is too powerful, and an attention to the finer details wherein the sum total of all the parts creates an experience, so to say, not just another beer. To me, these new Beans @Sixpoint and @SixpointJMH and crew have created achieve that.

 

Its funny you mentioned that....we are already thinking about concoctions for 2018!

 

Sounds Delicious can't wait till 3beans lands in Indiana.

 

The three I tasted at the brewery were very tasty and they weren't even done yet! Not sure why DISKORD brought BCBS into the picture one has nothing to do with the other.

A six pack of these barrel aged porters for $20 bucks is not only going to taste great, but an incredible value also. 14 days and counting, looking forward to getting my hands on these cans.

 

@StoutElk_92 @SammyJaxxxx @SawDog505 @ericwo @HorseheadsHophead

This is a bit of a rant, but nowhere (recently) has there been more disproportionality with brewers and their customers than barrel-aged beers. We saw a little bit of this about 10-15 years ago when IPAs first hit the market....do you all remember those days? Many of these first IPAs were in bombers, and they were charging $5-10 per bottle or more. Of course, now you can get a good six-pack of IPA for $10 or slightly more in many places. Who buys bombers of IPAs anymore? Very few people - the value is just not there.

Barrel-aged beers selling for $20-30 per bottle (or more) is similar. A wise man said "history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." So in that sense, the single-serving, elevated price of barrel-aged beers in bombers is similar to selling IPAs in bombers 10-15 years ago, given inflation and a few other factors (cost or production, etc.). Please take note I am not trying to say the beers are the same - they each have their own nuances of production, aging, etc. But the way they are marketed and distributed and priced are eerily similar.

Why can't you walk into a store and buy a six-pack or even four-pack of some great barrel-aged beer for a reasonable price? Its not like barrel-aged beers NEED to be consumed fresh. If anything, they hold up quite well versus other styles. However, at nearly a dollar per ounce or more, I'm not regularly buying.

I don't know about you, but I like to actually drink my beer. Yes, there are some exceptions and some beers that I keep around for a while or save for special occasions. But all beer was made in order to be drank. I don't want to buy it and take a photo of it, put a diaper on it, cradle it and lay it down. Ultimately want to open it up, pour it in a glass, and drink it. And if its good, I will do it again. And again. That's the whole point.

Not everything needs to be precious in order for it to be special. Many things in life that are special are everyday things that can be enjoyed on the regular. Beer is supposed to be one of those things, even barrel-aged beer.

cheers

 

Those are good points. Bombers are an overpriced format, and I end up turning down IPAs in bombers many times for that reason. Also, unlike IPAs and pilsners, barrel aged stouts can indeed age on a shelf--so that's not as much of a worry.

 

I'm looking forward to this for several reasons and format is one of them. It will be great to have a high quality Barrel Aged beer that does not require the investment of an entire evening. I love Gray Monday, but opening a bottle requires a level of dedication. As a result it is difficult to find the right evening to open one.

 

@drtth @StoutElk_92 @SawDog505 @frozyn @jrnyc

There's a growing sense of awareness among the long-time lovers of these styles that they are getting fleeced. If a brewery is growing by leaps and bounds and increasing their production of these beers by orders of magnitude, they have all of the benefits of economies of scale. Why then should the price be increasing over time, and/or the bottle sizes getting smaller, or you getting one beer when you used to get 4 beers, or even the beer getting infected?

Why are you paying a dollar per ounce of beer or more given all of these factors? Because the brewery can get away with charging you that amount? That's equitable?

There's more than one person who has spoken up about this issue, just as there were many people who spoke up about improper "bottled on" or "best buy" dates on bottles. Ignore the will of the people at your own peril.....

 

107 days in a barrel isn't much time at all. Guess we'll see how this stuff is, but I've been let down many times before by short aged BB beers. The standard is usually a year at least, or even 6 months. Still, I look forward to trying this one.

In regards to costs of BB beers, if you want a great example of a brewery NOT fleecing people or raising prices every year take a look at Central Waters. Not only do they have one of the best barrel aging programs in the business but the prices are fair and consistent. Not to mention the fact that they are expanding the program every year yet keeping the prices the same.

 

I feel exactly the same way. Seems like a waste of barrels.

 

Well I don't think we can put all the price increase on the shoulders of the Breweries.

I've noticed that there's somtimes a big difference beween the MSRP and what the retailer is asking per bottle. The Sixpoint beers, for example, are more expensive in some stores in PA than they are in others and I doubt you have any control over that.

But yes, if people stop buying, things will settle down (as they have with 22 oz bombers which we see fewer of these days).

Which in my mind lays most of the increases on the shoulders of those consumers who "must have it at any price." While we can rule out increasing labor costs, etc., the laws of supply and demand lead to the prediction that as demand exceeds supply the prices will continue to increase. Mix in the increasing numbers of consumers who have been discovering they prefer flavorful beer (contributing to increased deman) you have an almost guaranteed set of price increases.

 

That's where you are simply repeating platitudes that are not backed up by science. Brewing is a scientific endeavor; not one that is merely cloaked in fanciful marketing terms.

"Aged in barrels for one year." Does that make the beer inherently better than a beer aged for six months, or for 100 days? A true brewer/scientist would test that assumption.

What's the assumption/hypothesis? According to you, its that the longer the beer spends in a barrel, the better off the beer is.

The actual data says otherwise. As a matter of fact, there reaches a point in time where the longer the beer spends in the barrel, the WORSE off it is. Because that is when the beer no longer soaks up a meaningful amount of the essence of the spirits and the wood, but instead gets all of the aerobic agitation and exposure to contaminants. In other words, at some point the flavors are not improving - they are getting worse.

This is no different than dry-hopping. If you dry-hop a beer for one day, its not good enough. Dry-hop a beer for a few days, and there is remarkable improvement. However, dry-hop a beer for several months, and the beer no longer tastes good. All of these dry-hopping ranges should be tested and verified by science to determine the optimal contact time. It should not be left to platitudes or assumptions.

Similarly, our barrel-aging was verified by plate testing, sensory analysis, and other QA and QC that turned this assumption on its head. This is the benefit of actually having a product development team; you can challenge the assumptions and platitudes of the brewing industry in order to make better beer for your customers.

The proof is in the taste, as they say. Let us know if you want to have a can of the 3, 4, and 5Beans together so we can talk about it.

 

Time that a beer "should" spend in a barrel is always going to be subjective, stouts and porters in bourbon barrels being no exception. Where did the barrels come from? How soon were they filled with beer after the spirits were dumped? Condition of the wood will vary not only from distillery to distillery but from barrel to barrel. Is there any spirit remaining in the barrel? Just to name a few things that can influence how much time a beer might "need" to spend in each barrel.

Epic Brewing, for example, produces to my mind potentially the best whiskey barrel aged imperial stout in the country, Big Bad Baptist and it is my understanding that their beer spends roughly 3 months in barrels before blending and bottling. Big Bad Baptist is a phenomenal beer with incredible balance and wonderful barrel character.

 

From personal experience I can say that they aren't a let down, and 107 days is not a waste of barrels. Tastes are subjective, and you may be disappointed based on what you expect these beers will be, but I think the ~3 months in the barrel worked very well.

 

Wouldn't the REAL waste of barrels be letting the beer sit in them for too long until the flavors started to worsen, or worse yet, the beers getting infected?

If that's not a waste of a barrels, I don't know what is.

I stand by what our team did with their experimenting and the results. We look forward to your feedback as well.

 

Good point there. Yeah, you are right! Too bad 4 and 5 won't see distro. But I'll definitely let you know about how BBA 3BEANS is.

 

Keep in mind that all three beers have varying levels of intensity in terms of barrel-aging & exotic ingredients.

 

Yeah, keep teasing!