Bloomington in mid-December: Bourbon County Stout or other good stuff?

Bloomington, IN or Bloomington, IL?

 

Well, first of all.....GO HOOSIERS. Secondly, the beer store market in Bloomington is controlled by Big Red Liquors and the one off Walnut (or is it college?) around 15th street is one of the larger ones. I'd look on their website for all locations. I went to school there, but haven't been back in about 2 years so I don't know a lot about the craft beer options. I would HIGHLY recommend going to Upland Brewery though as they have awesome food and good (sometimes not great) beers. They also have special bombers and 6-packs you can usually buy.

 

BCBS dried up almost instantly around here. We don't get a lot of allocations for the ratio of beer geeks so I doubt you'll find much outside solid locals unless something has just showed up then.

 

BCBS was relavitely easy to get around here when it first came out, but i'm pretty sure the stock is depleted. I've heard that big red will be releasing a couple more cases on Dec. 1st during a big whiskey release, but it will likely be gone that day or shortly thereafter. I'm from the Dayton area and have family in C-bus, so i here's what i can think of off the top of my head that you can't get in OH-

--Tyranena. Some of the recent brewers gone wild 4packs may still be around (the devil made me do it- imperial coffee oatmeal porter). It's a really good beer. Don't buy any of the hop ***** if you see it- it's been on the shelves for quite a while.
--Schlafly- most of their regular beers are pretty good. They are starting an IPA series and the second installment (no idea of the name) might be out by then.
--Boulevard- again, most of their beers are good. Some saison brett will probably still be around as well as other limited offerings.
--Pretty things- i've only seen a handful of their beers, but the ones i've tried were all pretty decent and reasonably priced.

There are more but that's the major ones i can think of right now. Definitely hit Sahara Mart near college mall and the Big Red liquors downtown.

 

I live in Bloomington so let me update. The two best places to get bottles are the main Big Red store which is on Walnut and like 8th street. The other place is Sahara Mart on East 3rd which is really close to Red Lobster.

For draft beer a place called The Tap (facebook it) just opened and they seem to be getting some really high quality kegs. The other place to go is Yogi's and you can get their draft list on their website.