Bourbon County 2018

Doubt it sells much. Glad to have gotten one free at Jewel on BF, though!

 

For $75 that book better come with an signed certificate of authenticity and commemorative coin featuring @Jplachy's face on one side and Greg Hall's on the other.

 

I think Goose must be taking advantage of SO’s around the holidays. “Hey, they lined up for that Bourbon County, I’ll get them something related from Goose Island”

 

You’ve mentioned infection in the other BCBS thread using the same pic but didn’t discussed it here. Care to elaborate?

 

Only reason I put the pic with my response in this thread was to show the 15.2 ABV that I was referring to.

Edit: Since you brought it up in this thread...yes, the bottle in my picture tasted bad... like cherry cough syrup.

Someone else in that other thread mentioned the same bottle date and that his tasted like a sour. Could definitely be issues with this bottling date. Others have mentioned the same bottling date tasting fine though.

 

Redeemable for a bottle of Prop?

 

I just finished the coffee barleywine. It was pretty good but, nowhere near good enough to justify standing in that line and paying $22 for. I hope the other versions I have prove me wrong.

 

You paid $22? Yikes. I think mine was $16 before tax.

Agreed that it's a good beer but I wouldn't pay $16 again. Preferred it to WW though.

 

Yeah I believe so. Though through away the receipt recently. Didn't want evidence of my stupidity lying around lol. I did buy it in cook county IL though so who has any clue what % is tax and probably a higher demand seeing how it's 25 miles or so south of goose island.

 

$75 worth of work definitely went into that book and books of similar stature cost $75. Much like BCS variants the book is not for everyone. But yes I imagine this will make a nice gift for some people.

 

Yep. Some guy in my BF group didn't want it so I happily took the extra to give to a friend this Christmas.

 

100%. While I wouldn't have paid 75 bucks for it, I'm sure glad I got one for free at Jewel. It's super well done and interesting to flip through.

 

*** Long post warning - BF weekend recap ***

I wanted to do a full recap this year, because similar posts in last year's thread helped us out a lot this year.

* LP Binny's *
- This was our first time at LP. Wife and I drove from Cleveland on Thursday, after family Thanksgiving this year, instead of waiting and flying in early Fri morning. Got to our hotel (Hilton Garden in on Grand - $80 per night after tax and a really nice hotel) around 9pm. Unfortunately... we miscalculated the whole Thanksgiving thing and had NOWHERE to eat dinner. Only type of food anywhere ended up being frozen microwave food from the front desk. Oh well, will never make that mistake again. Ate in bed, got to sleep around 10, planned to get to LP by 3-4.

Ended up getting up and getting to LP at 2:40 and were #730 and 731 in line, outside the parking lot, around the side of the building. Set up our chairs and sat there for a half hr-hr when someone came around , checked our ID's and handed out wrist bands. All done really smooth/efficiently.

Waited another hour, had a beer, then headed over to Dunkin for some coffee. In hind-sight this wasn't needed because just after that, they started serving free coffee from the truck in the parking lot. Really cool to do for everyone (along with the pancakes!), just wish I would have payed more attention and known ahead of time. Also, if you do make the decision to do Dunkin next year, use the app. We ordered from the app and my wife walked right in, two different times, and got stuff immediately while everyone stood in line there.

After coffee, it got to 6am seemingly really quick, they made their way through the line at this point handing out your associated, numbered ticket, after showing them your wrist band. This also went smooth and efficiently. At around 6:30 the line condensed and we ended up all the way into the parking lot, near the front entrance. No cutting or fowl play at this point. This is precisely where I lost faith in the people who camped in the parking lot... So much trash, so many empty bottles, broken bottles, pillows?, just shit everywhere. I just don't get how people are such inconsiderate pieces of shit. Yes, I know there were not enough garbage cans for 1k people, but bottom line, if you bring bottles to drink in line... just put them back in the bag you brought them in when you're done. Not that difficult of a concept.

Doors opened right at 7, line moved quick, we were inside the building by 8:30, sampling free '18 reg, and out the door with our allotments right around 9. Only vintage left at that point were Northwoods, '17 BW, and '16 or '17 Coffee.

Summary of the event
- 800 people by 3:30am, but #1k didn't hit until just after 8.
- Event was very well run, throughout the night and sales as well. Very smooth and efficient.
- The free coffee and pancakes in line, then free BCBS inside were greatly appreciated.
- People are still dickheads and throw their shit everywhere, for others to deal with.
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*Hunting in the city*

- Left LP around 9:30 and headed to Costco, less than 10 min down the road. No variants (though I think they had some at open), but our main want here was Reg on the cheap... which we got. Limit 2pp, but $9.89/btl was awesome.
- Wife had pregnancy cravings, so we stopped at T-bell and ate some cheesy gordita crunches with the most baha sauce I've ever seen put on them. Props to those workers.
- Left T-bell and headed to Jewel @ Desplaines and Kinzie after seeing a post here that most variants were left and had no limit. Got to Jewel at 11, had everything but prop, nilla, reserve... case mountain. Picked up as much as I possibly could have wanted there, ran out to the parking lot to open a CBW, since I hadn't tried it yet and wanted to see if it was working getting more. To the contrary of most people hear, I loved it and ran back in to get more of that too.
- Went to another Costco and grabbed more cheap bottles of regular, also 2pp and $9.89 per.

Successful day for sure.
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*Drinking all the BCBS*

- After looking for all kinds of places last year and finding the Fulton taproom to be the best bet finally... this is the only place we went. Stopped to fill up on Lou Malnatti's on the way, then got to the taproom at 2pm, thinking that's when they opened... we were wrong. Place was packed and everyone was hammered, apparently opened at 11. Noted for next year.

Got pours of all the variants, loved them all for the most part, then they tapped Triple barrel at 3pm and I was blown away. That alone was worth the trip. So much wow. Also picked up a couple togo bottles of Prop 16, Regal, and older coffees.

As for rankings and feelings on this year's lineup. I did not expect that EVERY variant (and reg) would be this divisive. It's comical at this point at how strongly people feel, in total opposition on all these. To me, regular was absolutely fantastic, Reserve, like last year, was nearly indistinguishable from reg, and the rest of the variants hit exactly what they were going for, so bravo for that. I found things I loved about each of them.

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TL;DR

-Nowhere in the city will serve food past 8pm on Thanksgiving night
-LP Binny's event was very well run and last person to get a ticket showed up at 8am
-Some Jewel's had tons of cases of variants
-Costco is the spot for Reg, under $10/btl
-Nilla was seemingly way limited in the city, but abundant outside Chicago, especially other states.
-Fulton taproom is the spot for drinking
-Complete haul from the weekend and where it was purchased was as follows:
-12 Reg (LP/Costco)
-12 Bramble(LP/Jewel)
-12 Wheatwine(LP/Jewel)
-9 Coffee BW(LP/Jewel)
-9 Midnight Orange(LP/Jewel)
-6 '18 Prop(LP)
-3 Nilla(LP)
-3 Reserve(LP)
-2 '16 Prop(Fulton)
-2 Northwoods(LP)
-2 Regal(Fulton)
-1 '17 Prop(Fulton)

Lastly, also stopped and grabbed pours and 4pk's of my favorite coffee stout, Cafe Deth, and another fantastic fruited variant, Deth by Currants, from Rev on Friday.

Until next time Chicago, you have definitely been good to us.

 

As someone who actually frames and hangs the BF posters in our house, as well as bourbon county and Fulton St having sentimental value to my wife and I, we bought one. Would I have rather gotten one free for lining up? For sure, but it's really well done, looks beautiful, and was something we couldn't pass up.

 

If there are any western suburb guys here that are desperate, Elgin Armanetti on McLean has all but Reserve and Prop still for ridiculous prices, as they do with any limited beer.

 

That was a very well done post - I appreciate the time you put into it. Just curious, but how did you manage 6 Prop, 3 Vanilla and 3 Reserve. You mentioned a pregnant wife...extra allocation for the bun in the oven? If it were just you & the wife, I would've thought you'd get 4 Prop total and 2 each of Vanilla/Reserve.

Also, you're right that Coscto had variants. I was there 10 minutes or so before 9 and when I got to the BCBS, managed to grab Prop & Vanilla. By time I moved to the regular to grab my 2 there, the variants were all gone. They had all the others (minus Reserve, I believe), but Orange, Bramble, WW and Coffee BW were already scooped up by time I got there. I have to assume the got an extra case or two of Prop & Vanilla for those to have lasted longer than the others.

 

Yes a 3rd allotment for the bun (at least that's how she she justified it lol). She looped back because she's a crazy person and nobody was gonna stop a pregnant woman without probably getting cut.

She wanted to loop back earlier, but I told her that I at least wanted to post up here that 50+ spots were left (around 7:15am). After there were still 20 spots left a half hour later, she went back and grabbed another.

 

I was one of the 2,500 people who got a free one at Prop Day and I feel like I over payed....

Considering Josh Noel's book sold for about $20 and took 3-5 years to write, I'd say the BCBS book should be sub-$20....

 

This, this, a thousand times this!

 

Screw the southern US border wall to keep migrants out, we need an eastern border wall in Illinois to keep mules out....