Bourbon County 2018

Dang, I couldn't get into Bramble, it kept reminding me of like, grape juice I would drink as a kid or something. It's just not for me.

 

Had orange, vanilla, bramble, regular, and coffee barleywine last night. The only one that was drain poured (by 2 of us) was bramble. I drank my share, but, was by far my least favorite.

 

Surprised at how the bramble ABV [12.7] is so much lower than everything else (especially compared to midnight orange [15.2]).

 

Surprised? They added juice to it. Wouldn't that thin the alcohol out?

 

Yes, surprised. Not surprised that it is lower, but by how much lower it is. I’m not sure how to do the dilution math off the top of my head, but it seems like that’s an awful lot of juice and purée.

Also - interesting that midnight orange is a higher ABV than base.

 

All I know is that I gotta drink a lot of Midnight Orange in 2 years or it dies.

 

well northwoods had a similar drop in abv from the blueberry juice.
my guess with the orange would be batch variation. they likely pulled the volume for the variant pre final blend. it just seems weird since they make bourbon county year round. unless it refermented the sugars in the orange but im guessing they pasteurize the second its out of the barrel

 

They just used the dark orange part of the outer skin (zest basically). So I’m not surprised that it didn’t lower the abv as much as the Bramble juice. That said, yeah it’s weird that the abv is higher than in the regular

 

Midnight Orange is listed as 15.2, same as regular...



There are multiple ABV's of Regular BCBS every year. Maybe they made all the Midnight Orange out of the higher of the two regular ABV versions?

 

Ohhh... I have 14.7 and a 15.2.

Which one is better?!?!?

 

Hmmm...I think your best bet would be to combine them both and enjoy the 14.95 version

 

The one that is open and you are drinking

 

Any sightings near Bloomingdale/Roselle?

 

I was pretty pumped to grab Bramble, Orange and Wheatwine at Jewel last night; I thought I'd be relegated to Coffee BW status (which was easily the most-stocked, and which I passed on). I'm hoping to pick up the other "top" variants later on (Prop, Reserve, Vanilla), but I'm also appreciative of the sheer quantity of BCBS the AbInBev acquisition has given us.

 

If anyone here thinks Vanilla is too sweet but likes Bramble, I think you are absolutely nuts.

I find Vanilla pretty balanced, with some nice underlying burnt caramel notes adding ballast.

This version of Bramble is Northwoods-level cloying, with an added chemical / astringent burn that makes me think it's actually a medical experiment on our tastebuds.

The real crime is that the Greg Hall Bramble is one of the finest beers I've ever had. Et tu, Jared???

 

OG Bramble was an artisanal product with real berries added. New bramble is what we feared from GI-InBev acquisition- dumbed down product made where the corners were cut with juice so they could more easily mass produce it. Great if you are charging less for it, but hard to justify watering BCBS down with relatively inexpensive juice puree and still pricing it as a premium product....

 

Not a big fan of 18 regular. I'll be hunting down more 17 regular at this point. Glad I only bought the one.

 

Regular is a highlight of this year for me. Haven’t had a bottle yet, but on tap it was classic BCBS.

 

Been saying exactly this myself. Reintroduction? I think not.

 

Binny's (Evergreen Park) had a pile of '17 regular on the floor today.