New Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout 2018 Variants

This all day long. Especially with big beers like these that I’m drinking for probably an hour. Especially with the first oe. Then I’ll open the second one where I want it, maybe room temperate, maybe somewhere in between.

 

I just finished up the Wheatwine. Although I think Midnight Orange really nailed what they were gling for, I enjoyed drinking the Wheatwine more. I’m going to crack open the Bramble shortly
and then hopefully drink the vanilla tomorrow for a NBS post. Cheers.

 

I opened a bottle of Vanilla on Friday night and was thoroughly impressed! I've been lucky enough to have had VR a few times from 2014-2016 (both draft and bottle) and I thought the 2018 Vanilla fell right in line with VR. I also recently opened a 2014 BCBCS and BCBS and based on those, I suspect the 2018 Vanilla is drinking better than 2014 VR right now. The 2014's I opened were still drinking well, but I feel like they've passed their peak with more oxidation showing.

I'm very happy that GI listened to everyone who has been asking for another release of Vanilla BCBS and it seems like they made it a priority to make this one of the most widely available variants this year!

 

Central MD reporting in. I called into a few stores on Friday and only variants we got were vanilla and the orange. I stopped in a popular store on Saturday and variants were gone but lots of cases of regular sitting on the floor for $14.99 (same as last year pricing). Last year, a few bottles of regular lasted in stores for a few weeks, before it was all gone. That was a first, and assume production increased last year (with the smaller bottle format as well). For this year, I passed on all of it because a) I have a 2017 BCBS I haven't been able to find the ocassion to crack yet and b) my beer drinking pals and I have too many high ABV/big bottle BA stouts still in our cellars that we are trying to decrease the over-stock. I'm sure the vanilla is good, but considering the high-level stouts we've been drinking thru, we're not missing out on anything except saving some time and money.

 

I'd take a case for $14.99

 

The entire Lansing area got 30 cases with about half of it going to Meijer. Several places that had it last year got none. Others had 12 bottles. No variants. Nothing sitting on shelves here. I stopped at one store Friday morning. The manager told me there were getting any. I stopped looking. I did find another store selling howlers. Picked up one yesterday.

 

Totally agree, I have been drinking mine warmer and they are awesome. When I consume cold verse warm its night and day. I had a stout yesterday that I felt was poor, then when it warmed it turned awesome.

 

Had the Orange yesterday and I have to say it is fantastic. As other have said, they nailed the flavor that they targeted. I hope I can find some more of the Orange as things calm down.

I found the Vanilla.....to be really bad. Bad enough I drank half a bottle and dumped the rest. Not sure what was up with it. Had a heavy coffee/alcohol taste to it. Of course I have like 7 Vanillas now.

Will be trying out the Wheatwine tonight and crossing my fingers I can find a Bramble at some point. I was most excited to try that variant but never found any.

 

Despite my bitching about Goose and the variant pricing this year...I bought two bottles of regular yesterday. You aren't wrong...this tastes bad. Mine tastes like cherry cough syrup. Buying two is a record low for me since 2012. After this bottle, I might be successful at buying 0 bottles next year.

 

Have a buddy who just sent me a pic of about half a pallet of regular sitting in a grocery store in NC for $9.99 bottle. I think I paid $11.99 or $12.99 for the regular I got.

 

Do you plan to contact GI? Sounds like 2015 all over again. Pasteurization won't reverse existing infection, if that's what is going on. Testing before bottling should catch it though.

 

Well that F-ing sucks. How good are they are returns? I remember there being a big issue about that in years past.

 

Yes, I just sent them an email.

 

Oddly enough, I bought a ton of bottles in 2015, and I still have some left. To this day, I have never had a bad 2015 bottle...all have tasted perfect.

 

Keep us posted, but betting they've already heard, and first step will be denial. After all they're GI and we're not.

Though 2015 got a lot of press, I expect the actual percentage of infected beer wasn't very high. I seem to recall an estimate under 20% but not sure whose statistic that was, or whether it went up later in the process.

 

Check your local Costco. Many in NorCal still have over a hundred bottles of regular at $9.50 each. Cheers! Haven’t tried mine so I cannot speak to the infection claims from other members.

 

The bottle I had was infected... with awesome!

... I'll show my own dumb ass out.

 

For comparison... The 8/22 14.7% bottle I opened tasted good, lil hot but good.

 

My 14.7% ABV bottled July 11, 2018 had no issues.

 

Had the wheatwine so far. It was very drinkable, almost dangerously so for the high abv. I found it too sweet, like melted caramel & toffee candies. I'm excited to try the Midnight Orange next.