Bourbon County 2018

In addition to my above post, I'll just add that I think they did this perfect in 2013/2014...

2013: Regular, Coffee, Barleywine (the good version), Backyard, Prop
2014: Regular, Coffee, Barleywine (the good version), Vanilla Rye, Prop

That's all you need.

 

The latter. The post(s) by @HawksBeerFan nails my sentiments exactly.

I wish GI was more focused with their line-up and nailed each offering rather than flood the market with many options but very limited quantities. But their current strategy better aligns with the beer culture of FOMO, Untappd, camping out, line bottle shares, etc.

 

Yeah, was thinking about hitting McHenry Binnys as well as I'm on the road but can't imagine that location getting a decent variant allotment. Getting there at 6 or 7 am isn't going to cut it. Will be heading to northern WI were the land of Miller/Coors pretty much prevents any variants from entering.

 

Anyone do the OP Jewel and OP Binny's route last year? Curious as to how that all went.

 

Anyone got inside intel on Chicago area Costco's? I know they normally have a pallet of regular but wondering if they will get any variants.

 

Problem is, the "good beer" being discussed here is hard to get from a scarcity standpoint.

This would check out if they hadn't done any coffee variant this year. But they did.

 

I guess they used to use cold brew and now they are using dry beans on the BW and anything they use in the future. The Coffee BW was a mistake from 2013 when they accidently randled coffee with BW instead of BCBS.

 

I went to LP last year and my wife went to Jewel OP. She did pretty good. I think she got there at 6am and got Regular, Barleywine, Northwoods, Coffee and Prop. However, I know of at least 20 people that are arriving at OP Jewel this year at 1am, which means I'm definitely not going there.

 

Interesting. Either they're saying "we didn't want to do a coffee BCBS because we didn't like the outcome and can't figure out how to keep green pepper out".
Or they're saying "we figured out a fix to green peppers, it's to use dry beans instead of cold brew".

Still doesn't make sense. Neither of those are a reason why you'd do Coffee BCBW instead of Coffee BCBS

 

C'mon why is this pervading all of a sudden. We've been over this.

Perceiving green pepper from coffee is a genetic mutation. It's not the coffee's fault!

 

Honestly I was just kinda shocked he admitted it to have that green pepper taste lol

 

I've only lived in the Chicago area for less that two years so I don't have a ton of experience here but was coffee, Prop and VR/Backyard easily obtainable in 13/14? I've read some stuff about VR sitting around for a while but wasn't that because people didn't like it initially? Just trying to get a feel as to how easy it was to get the varieties then vs now. I understand that the barleywine is different now (I agree that they should go back to the way they used to do it), but do you think original and other varieties has taken a hit in quality/taste? If so, how? (really not trying to be a dick here, I just want to understand what it used to be like)

 

Nah variants sold out the day of most places in 13 and 14, except for maybe Barleywine. It didn't sit on the shelves anywhere except for the places selling bottles for $60-80 a pop.

Some places do their release on the following Monday or Friday, and of course people would luck into bottles at places who just put them on the shelf the next week. But they wouldn't last long. In 2013 you could get lucky finding bottles at some smaller shops, but by 2014 most people had caught on to those and would buy em out.

There would also be random Mom & Pop joints not realizing what they had and allowing someone to buy entire cases of VR or Prop. That seemed less common in 2015 on, unless you knew someone at a liquor store.

It was certainly easier in 2013 to hit multiple stores and get more than one allotment, since getting to a store an hour early was usually enough then. Also more stores would use beermenus.com or social media to announce when it was in, causing a flood of people coming in for the next several hours. This allowed some lucky people to grab some, but would cause the store headaches all day with people coming in, so they stopped doing it.

In 2012 I would still see Coffee Bombers still sitting on the shelves for months, Cherry Rye was mostly gone though.

 

They do. 1 variant (not one of each) per person. Mt. prospect Costco asked which of the available bottles you'd like and handed out a laminated card.

 

I don't remember Prop ever being easy to find, although if you were fast, you could usually get to a shop before it was gone (beermenus helped a lot back then). Same goes for VR. On the other hand, I mostly base my experience on the big liquor stores in Chicago-proper, so I'd imagine the story might be slightly different if you were in the 'burbs. Were 2013 Prop easy for me to obtain, I'd probably still be drinking it now, since it's my favorite beer all-time.

Personally I've had no issue with BCBS regular since I started drinking it, but I haven't had this year's, which is the one that I've heard people complain most about.

 

I mean, is it straight forward enough to say that I was able to get bottles of all of the beers that were released without having to wait in any lines? It wasn't necessarily "easy" at that point in time to get all of the variants though, 2014 especially so. 2013 was definitely easier than 2014, I'd say 2014 is when things started to get a little crazy. 2012 was EASY though.

As far as quality...
-BCBS has been very consistent, year in, year out to me. I had a small pour of 2018 at FOBAB and it seemed a bit "less" than before in terms of the barrel notes, but I will have to try it in a different setting. Generally though, I have had bottles as old as 2006 and the quality has always been very high.
-BW, as you have gathered, has taken a significant hit since they stopped using the prior years BCBS barrels. I don't mean this to trash the new BW, it's a very good BW. My problem is the original BW was a world class beer.
-Coffee definitely dipped over the years.
-The fruited releases I think are generally always pretty darn solid. Even bramble this year is very good. I think people always complain about these when they drink them fresh because they've always been pretty fruity, and then they rave about them a couple years later. I've always liked them fresh.
-OG Vanilla and VR were way, way better than this year's vanilla. The old ones were just deliciously balanced.
-Prop is a different beast in that it changes so much, some years will be hits and some will be misses. 13 and 14 are my favorites but I also loved 17.

Does that help?

EDIT: I should mention Rare as well I guess. The original Rare I've always thought was a very good beer but maybe my palate isn't good enough to pick up on all the nuanced differences, but to me it is very similar to normal BCBS. The flavors were slightly different sure (I remember licorice, raisin being a bit more dominant than in normal BCBS) but it's not something that blew away regular BCBS. I felt the same about 2015 Rare. A great beer, but not worth the up charge.

King Henry though... that may be the GOAT

 

Yeesh. Appreciate that info.

 

I've mentioned I've only had Rare when it was like 5 years old (although I'm lead to believe it had always been cellared properly, so the 5 years shouldn't make a huge difference), but my feeling was the same. I remember the finish being longer than BCBS, but in general it just tasted like a "better" BCBS to me. I guess given that BCBS is one of the all-time classics, a better version is saying quite a bit, though.

+1 hipster points for picking a barleywine as your GOAT (although I know you have some support here)

 

I woudln't even call Rare "better", I'd call it more just a different twist on BCBS. They're equally good in different ways.

 

Incorrect. It is harder to track down, it was far more limited and it cost more. Everyone knows hype + rarity = better.