Goose Island Bourbon County 2019

Just get over the infection shit. That is played out and very tired. Not funny. Move on

 

You mean the same one I’ve had since I joined? Oh okay

 

It's not funny but it is good evidence that they do not have THE BEST barrel program in the world

 

The infection issues in 2015 were really bad and GI did not handle it as well as they should have. That said, the 2015 uninfected regular BCBS was excellent, much more so than 2017, and even 2016. It also held up incredibly well. GI does not have the best barrel aging program, and the 2015 infections are a permanent scar, but the quality of the product speaks to a great barrel aging program that is on par with the best of them. The fact that they can produce so much of it and still keep up the quality is impressive.

 

Clearly you haven't read my posts. I have tolerated infection issues from several breweries. Goose Island and by proxy InBev is the only brewer who has tried to sell recalled bottles back to me, and that friend is unforgivable.

 

Boy, this sure devolved really fucking fast.
Back to discussing the notional beer that could get released. I think the oyster and dry hopped ones are likely not real. Surprised they weren't really trying to hide those this year. I do find it interesting that there is a lot of emphasis on the barrels rather than adjuncts. I guess they've heard the praise for Reserve the past two years and are doubling down (no put intended) on specific barrels. It'll be cool to have a double barrel in bottles, as I really like all of the double and triple barrel variants I've had at Fulton. Fingers crossed for a double barrel brandy! I do hope the coffee stout makes a comeback this year. Just had a 14 the other day and it was incredible.

 

Why do we need two fucking threads? Every. Fucking. Year.

 

Not to be a smartass, but Great Lakes doesn't have exclusive rights to Bourbon County 20XX thread every year. There are a lot more people from around the country chiming in here.

 

I agree and I don't give a flying fuck where the thread is. But having two is ******ed.

 

Yeah, according to GI's beer finder the only thing sold within 40 miles of me is IPA & Green Line. I've never seen any BCBS anywhere upstate.

 

My local guy is selling 2018 for 12 bucks a bottle still. Will 2019 move this go around?

 

I drank a 2018 last night and thought it was just okay. I do miss pre 2015 BCBS. I find myself buying less and less every year. Maybe it's my palate, maybe it's the beer, maybe I'll open a 2013 tonight and re-live the glory years...

 

I hope Goose does some new variants this year. Last year they played it safe and rehashed old favorites. Not super fun for those of us who had all the originals.

 

If Wheatwine and Midnight Orange were safe...I'll take No One Ever Complained About These Beers for $1,000 Alex!

 

Maybe this has been covered but why would they ever stop making coffee BCBS? One of my all time favorite beers. So much so I think I put a little cold brew in just about every regular BCBS I drank this year.

 

or maybe they've determined some adjuncts were less conducive? coffee kept going bad / low yields. the barrels they migrated to no longer can handle the 1-2-3 process.

we predicted GI was headed for trouble 7 years back. that trouble actually arrived right after the convo began. the good thing is in 2012 they didn't release the bad beer at all. they ended up discarding it like we'd expext "one of the BEST programs" to do. 3 years later they did release bad beer. something we wouldn't expect one of the BEST programs to do.

 

Keeping in mind that the organism that caused the infection was one that was not previously known to cause problems for beer. Thus the beer was not believed to be infected at the time of release and the infection showed up first in beer from distributors in one of the Southern states who were notorious for not refrigerating their beers.

 

I was told by a GI rep that the strain actually DEVELOPED and EVOLVED at GI due to the length of time they had been doing this kind of 'clean' beer in their barrel house!

 

Had not heard that yet. Thanks!

Makes sense that that could be what happened to them given what we know about what's been happing over the years because of overuse of such things as antibiotics leading to development and evolution of resistent strains of bacteria.

So their normal testing routine could well have been showing the presence of that strain for a few years before it evolved enough over time to cause a problem post bottling.

 

but keeping in mind all that coffee they threw out before Black Friday(?) proof they knew very well something *could* be wrong beforehand. going purely by memory, but want to say the author guy that volunteered to do Q&A on BA also indicated the Barley Wine was turning at a pre-release tasting? if so, keeping things like that in mind too, i mean there is just so much overwhelming evidence that they ignored warning signs & still released bad beer.

as i mentioned before there's one very simple thing they could implement to lessen their PR predicaments. stop making hyped deadlines that they're forced to try to meet on time at all costs. just release the beer if/when it's ready.

to be clear. i don't disagree with anything you said. my beef is knowing all signs point to them knowing ((some)) beer was bad, beforehand. they never solved the mystery why the beer was bad (previously unrecognized organism as you indicated). it's irresponsible to then release more beer while the mystery hasn't been completely solved. doing so imho was the opposite of one of the "BEST programs".