New Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout 2018 Variants

It better, as I'm off that day just for that purpose...

 

Guru?

yes. distillers for the most part describe raw barrel flavor exchange receding after 7-9 years. that's not in dispute. neither is your logic. but here are a few things that say the brand ((might)) matter. & the 8 year age thing, not so much so:

-2010 Rare was aged in 50 Pappy Van Winkle (brand) 23 year old barrels. Greg Hall indicates 49 of the 50 were bottled. note. 23 years is almost 3 times the value you cited as the important factor. not to mention, Goose Island re-used these same worn out barrels to age and release King Henry in 2011.

-2011 BCBS "Wheat" aged in Rebel Yell (brand) barrels was supposed to be released. Rebel Yell barrels fall right in the range of age you cited as the important factor. the release failed & was discarded.**side note** if you are who i think, then you are well aware Luxco is only a bottler. Rebel Yell was actually Heaven Hill distilled & barreled.

-2009ish - 2013ish for regular BCBS Goose Island repeatedly professed it uses Heaven Hill barrels averaging 14ish years of age. brand speculation aside, "14ish" years of age is noticeably beyond the 8 year flavor plateau cited.

-2011/2 ish it becomes clear Elijah Craig (brand) has some supply issues in store. **side note only semi related but relevant** 2012 is the same year Firestone Walker can't obtain it's usual barrel supply which had been Heaven Hill barrels for Parabola. they instead use Four Roses barrels for the first time. Brynildson was described as pissed off to highest level of pisstivity.

-2012 based on warehouse images & blogs it can been seen on barrel heads Goose has a large cache of Heaven Hill barrels but the info when decoded indicates the spirit & barrels originated at Early Times (Brown Forman's) distillery.

-2015 release based on images inside the warehouse & Rare Day events etc, Goose Island displayed aging barrels from a mulititude of distillers. many of the barrels appeared to be in the age range cited as the more important (flavor) consideration. how did the 2015 release fair?

based on the above, i'm not prepared to say the age of the barrel completely or automatically trumps "brands". likewise it appears the better part of Goose Island's glory was based on barrel usage that was beyond the flavor cut-off point cited as more important.

 

If you're asking if I'm Squire from the Bourbon Boards yes, I am. Squire is actually my name which I use on hobby boards because I see no need for an internet cognomen. This place is about beer so I try not to wander off into Bourbon territory unless it's beer related.

Brewers seem to be taking different approaches to their "Bourbon Barrel Aged" beers ranging from aging in actual barrels to using portions of barrels, extracts from barrels, even dumping Bourbon into their barrels to refresh them before the beer is added. I can't verify the last from actual knowledge but my point, on which I believe you will agree, is the thing that matters is the end product that's bottled and sent out to consumers.

 

You fuckin bourbon *****s

 

Pot, kettle

 

Be best

 

I have always been very skeptical of the ages of the barrels breweries claim to use. Who is claiming they are that old? How can that be verified? The distillery- probably not, it's the barrel broker. 30+yr HH barrels? Interesting, that they've NEVER released something that old yet "happen" to have enough barrels to produce thousands of cases of lolRare. How could SO many barrels go missing at a massive distillery, who in the 200_ was in desperate need of mature whiskey to sell?

The only thing these people claiming that the barrels are that old have is that presumably the scotch industry (followed by Irish whiskey, tequila, and rum) probably prefer barrels with more life left in them than breweries. Besides the fact that it's by far the biggest bourbon style producer in the world, Jack Daniels barrels are coveted because they HAVEN'T been aged for a really long time. Most of the Beam Suntory barrels end up in Scotland (no broker involved) since they have so many in house brands with a huge appetites for barrels.

The fact remains bourbon over even 12yrs old is microscopic compared to the 4-7yr stuff that. My intuition (maybe not worth much to most of you) says that over 14yrs is certainly less than 1% of the bourbon industry. 12yrs and older is probably less <1% of the bourbon industry.

How many bourbons that are readily available have a >10yr age statement?

 

According to the Heaven Hill spokesman, Larry Kass, of the approximately one million barrels of Bourbon HH currently has aging about 20,000 are 30+ years old and another 30,000 or so are 20+. He is also on record as saying these very old Bourbons are not bottled for sale because most customers find the stuff undrinkable. They are used to spike up younger blends but I don't know (or recall) how many are dumped each year and available for sale to brewers.

 

The comment I had previously liked had been removed but looking forward to Fruity Pebbles and cocaine next year.

 

I had VR 2 years ago and I thought it was fantastic for the first 15 minutes and then the vanilla was just too overwhelming. Things have changed over the years as have bottle to bottle variation. I cant wait to see how they do the new vanilla. I was very impressed with some of last years offerings particularly the barleywine.. one of the few examples of a small fish being swallowed by a big fish and they didn't completely screw things up. Cheers.

 

sorry. didn't mean it like that. i'm getting old. your avatar, i know i had seen it elsewhere before but didn't put 2 & 2 together until your first reply. then yesterday your handle came back to me.

technically i don't & didn't disagree with you before. the logic regarding barrel flavor & what MDs have said was spot on. beyond whiskey logic though, i don't think brewers (if even aware of this logic at all) have religiously followed or exercised it, purposely. & yes i also agree what matters is the end product that consumers receive.

this is a bit of a grey area but i have heard it suggested quite a few times in the past & it may be worth considering. quite a few have inferred they believe that the whiskey hidden in the walls of barrels is actually where beers tend to get bolder flavors from. the cool(er) storage of aging beer is believed to promote cycling back into the barrel contents (beer). in other words they are indicating it's much less of an exchange where the barrel is pulling in beer to flavor it & more so about whiskey receding out of the barrel wood into the beer that is aging. this whiskey is believed to be barrel wood flavor heavy & thus you get barrel related flavor/notes in the end product. in this scenario, more so than the age of the barrels, it's believed that the more important factor is where in the cycling process was the barrel emptied of spirit. if the barrel was dumped when the cycling was well into pulling spirit into the wood, then the brewer has a good chance of their beer pulling back a good chunk of spirit & flavor buried in the barrel wood.

 

That's the Coffee Barleywine. No BCBCS this year.

 

Just saw that and deleted it, haha. I'm surprised they made it the exact same color!

 

Are you saying the Jack Daniel's barrels are coveted by breweries because they don't have a lot of age on them? Does this impart certain qualities on the barrel aged beer that make them desirable?

 

I really hope to see the Vanilla and Horchata versions here in Las Vegas...

 

Don't hold your breath on the Horchata. That's not a 2018 variant. Here is the final list for 2018.

 

Damn, oh well... I guess I'll look for the Orange one.

 

No one has mentioned this new variant

 

Anyone with experience on the likely supply in the Sarasota area? Will be there on vacation on Black Friday and am hoping to bring some home.

While it may have lingered on some shelves last year, in the Detroit area, it was gone very quickly.