Bourbon County Prop Day 2018

I liked watching the reactions of people eating the wings when the spice caught up to them....haha....I did buy a bottle of that cause I thought it was damn tasty.....and they served me wings pretty much on demand all afternoon....

 

Here’s my order:

1. Vanilla
2. Prop
3. Bramble
4. Reserve
5. Reg
6. Wheat Wine
7. Orange

Didn’t have the coffee. All were good except Orange...Orange tasted like orange jolly ranchers. Very weird.

 

Agreed- I'd put it as the worst. I couldn't figure out what the opening pour in the snifter was, everyone was telling me Regular, but I couldn't believe it. It didn't taste anything like BCBS I remember.

 

It's missing nuance. There's hardly any barrel character. If you let it linger on your palate a bit you get leather on the back end but otherwise its missing that BCBS complexity. Its still a tasty beer but disappointing compared to say '13 or '17 which are just stellar beers.

 

Reserve and Vanilla were a cut above the rest for me. Prop is what everyone is saying it is... loads of chocolate. Bramble tasted super thin, fruit juicy and not the usual thickness you’d expect in BCS. Midnight Orange was chocolate and orange with little barrel. Coffee barleywine was a really interesting experiment. Definitely not my favorite lineup they’ve had but the hits really hit.

 

This is spot on. I'd put coffee second to last, but orange was last by a long shot. Thought it was terrible. Worst variant ever.

 

Regular tasted like regular to me and damn good. It was also the first drink I had upon walking in with a clean palate. Still the benchmark for barrel aged non adjunct stouts in my book

Prop 18 was great imo. It is definitely a chocolate bomb and tastes like the liquid chocolate inside a lindor truffle. I thought they did a great job showcasing all the spectrums that chocolate can be from sweet to bitter. I feel like it’s good right now but will benefit from aging as well and can see this being a sleeper

Bramble was more berry forward than I remember the original batch to be and was a tad thin yet very tasty. I think some people are going to be disappointed compared to the original but I’d put this up against any berry adjunct ba stout out there

Reserve was so smooth and was slightly more intense than regular in that you do pick up more of the cherry/almond I assume from these particular barrels. I still don’t understand the price tag for it but it is a supremely good straight forward ba Stout

Vanilla was not a vanilla bomb but more of a compliment to the barrel and that’s in a good way. Very well balanced though I can see this aging towards the sweeter side. Definitely not vr if that’s what you’re expecting

Coffee Barleywine I had high hopes for but did not deliver imo. The pour I had had zero coffee flavor but didnt taste like bcbbw either. This is a non factor to me considering you can get straight jacket in Chicago with ease

Midnight orange. Wow what a disaster! It smells like Cointreau and initially tastes like regular bcbs until the back end drops off into orange juice. I will not be chasing this one

Treats were prop 14 pours in mystery line and scuba guy pouring cherry rye out of backpack keg while waiting to pick up bottles. Well worth $30 and then some

 

Bramble, Prop and Vanilla were my favorites and Orange was also surprisingly good. Tasted like one of those orange flavored dark chocolate candies

 

No scuba guy during my time in line. Bummer.

 

Wow, I fucking loved Midnight Orange. This is wild that so many people didn't like it.

 

I’m loving how everyone has a different take on the variants.

Personally, I thought Vanilla and Midnight were by far the standouts, but also understand if neither is your jam.

It’s still a major bummer there’s no coffee bcs. That might be the best beer in the world.

 

I’m with you. I loved it, and used most of my tokens on it.

I understand if you didn’t like it, but they nailed
the flavor profile they were going for. The aroma was out of this world.

 

I also really didn't like the regular they had as the opening pour...had a fruity overtone that I don't normally associate with bourbon county

 

I got a '14. When I walked by the group of guys, one of them said, "that's expired" so I replied with, that's okay, so am I. Another guy suggested that I opened my bottle to which I simply said, nope & kept walking. I knew exactly what they were trying to do & I wasn't about to be a part of it.

That all being said, my only complaints about today were the lack of direction & communication from the staff to attendees. They never announced for either session 3 or 4 to line up. Also, the lines for vintage bottles/mystery pours were so screwed up that no one knew where the end of either line was. Each line wrapped around in such a crazy way that it was difficult to determine where to stand so that people didn't like cut. Otherwise, it was a great time seeing friends in the industry while having some great beer.

 

The mystery bottle pick up line for group 4 was hilarious. It came straight back out of the pick up area and then did a continuous inward circle / spiral. It got to a point where there was no more space for people to line up and made it incredibly hard to find out where the line ended. Lines for the Reserve, Vanilla etc were somewhat normal although long. Agree, that the Orange / Mystery pour "lines" were chaotic - one forming all the way past the Scofflaw sales area but then another 2 or 3 lines forming inside on the back end by the mystery bottle pick up.

 

Yes it was nuts. I got in line when the spiral wasn't quite at capacity. What made up for it was what seemed to be a loaded prop wall with a ton of 2014!

 

Great event yesterday, was able to try them all because a couple guys gave us tokens on their way out.

Got prop 17 from the mystery wall, which i was happy with as i didn't get a bottle last year and loved it.

Rankings

1. Vanilla
2. Prop
3. Wheatwine
4. Midnight
5. Reserve
6. Original
7. Coffee Barleywine
8. Bramble

Had reserve right after original, think ill pass on reserve this year, not much of a difference. Bramble was far too fruit forward. Coffee was good, no balance, just straight coffee flavor. I liked midnight, orange was just enough i felt. Wheat was borderline a favorite for me, nice caramel and light flavor, balanced. Prop and vanilla were standouts.

 

They really should make vanilla every year.

 

When I was walking out of the mystery bottle line the guys had moved on to asking "you gonna flip that?" to anyone with '14

 

Ha yes....the line was like a cinnamon roll. You had to dizzy your way into the middle of it. I felt like I was in Westworld trying to find the middle of the maze.