Goose Island Bourbon County 2019

Now that our market gets variants, I'm more into them than regular, though regular is as good as ever.

 

I haven’t seen a variant is years, last year they pulled some because they exceeded the state limit on abv. I’m pushing away from BA Stouts, for the most part I find a sameness to the brews. I also prefer the 12 oz bottles, I think the 500 ml are unwieldy. No problem with the quality it’s still a good beer, to be honest I don’t think I’ve ever beer completely stunned by any BA Stout.

 

Illinois fan boy here. No irritation, the market for barrel aged beers has exploded in the last few years, and @Jason is correct!

 

The major issue that’s come to light in the last couple of pages is the continued use of “barrel program”. It needs to stop.

 

what should it be as opposed to: "barrel program"?

 

I’m afraid I have nothing to offer. Though I’m not sure there needs to be one actually.

All I know is that “barrel program” (and its even more vile cousins sour program and hop program) hits me with a brutal one/two punch. It opens up with something that’s just too grandiose/overreaching for beer. And on the finish I get a reaction similar to how many people feel about the word “moist”.

Is it not sufficient just to talk about a brewery’s barrel aged / sour / hoppy beers?

 

How do you feel about “mixed fermentation program” though?

 

Come on man that’s overstepping. You know that. If you have to programmatize that one then it’s “the program that shall not be named”

 

What.

 

Just wait until the workers do a 21st century internet rebrand in hopes of gaining more competitive salaries by calling themselves Barrel Programmers....

 

Might have something to do with the fact that the list of the types of barrels, age of the barrels, length of time the original spirit was aged in the barrels, when beer was put in the barrels, and what actual beers are in the barrels (and more) got to be a very unwieldy document...maybe kind of like a "program"...and the name stuck.

I know people at multiple breweries performing these duties. It's not an entry level position. It may not be "grandiose" (how many people's jobs really are though?), but it's not like someone's just kicking around two Jim Beam barrels full of ginger ale with nothing else to do all day.

 

I'll see your "Barrel Program" and raise you "Hop Game".

 

Geez the guy didn't call your mom a *****. Downshift a little.

 

My posts were semi-tongue in cheek in case that wasn't clear. I grant you that there are some cases where the "program" moniker could be warranted. More often than not though when I see "barrel/sour/hop program" mentioned on BA, it's in reference to a yet-to-be-opened / recently opened 5bbl brewery where the local BAs are already touting the place's XYZ program (something the brewer/brewery themselves are not even identifying with), which is probably going to be something closer to your 2 x Jim Beam example.

Also I never said that people working in the space had any pretense of grandiosity. Just that the term doesn't fit with beer as a whole - in my opinion.

But yeah AB-Inbev has a barrel program. good for them.

 

Central Waters - who has one of the largest BA "programs" in the industry - calls it "Brewer's Reserve". Founders and Avery both call it "Barrel Aged Series". Several others call it "Barrel Series". BrewDog calls it their "Boilermaker Series".

 

Reading everyone here argue about pointless crap is so entertaining. Thank you!

 

thanks. i get what you mean now. their operation (is that a better term?) is continuous & involves a series of functions i'm comfortable labeling a "program". if you are referring to small operations that once in awhile secure a handful of barrels to drop a title or two... then yeah i agree "program" is probably an exaggeration.

 

what you are saying here is what i thought rozzom might have been trying to convey originally (i.e. don't use the word at all). save for Avery, i don't know extensively about each of the other brewers you named, but you said yourself they have large "programs". i don't think it matters what you call a program. it is still a program. maybe i'm wrong but what i'm getting now is rozzom was implying some brewers have no business labeling their operation a " barrel program".

 

Yeah exactly. Both that and (more commonly) having the label foisted upon them by overzealous local BAs who are already lining up trades in their head

 

As long as the Brewers themselves use the term "Barrel-Aging Program" to name and describe what they are doing I won't be worried about using the term myself when I am talking about such breweries.

Edit. To name a few: Avery, Boulevard, Founders, Upland