John Laffler is leaving Goose Island to start Off Color Brewing

Not really surprised. It was just a matter of time.

And I'm already in line.

 

Here's my ticket MasterSki...

 

I give wheat beers alot of love. Hope these make it to GA!

 

well i wish the other thread was merged and not deleted from the great lakes area. was submitting a post and then POOF.

anyway where was i? oh yeah
good god. living down the street from lagunitas and now the gf living down the street from off color. iso: fresh liver and kidney FT aged liver and kidney

 

That would have made sense, though.

And this is not surprising in the least, John's never been one to rest on his laurels.

 

Cellar those 2012 BCS's now.

 

the great lakes needs to be shut down for a day because (insert brace yourself meme picture) a ton of new threads will be submitted. temp mods will be needed to shoot down those bogeys.

 

vav how much rare, vanilla and king henry are left in that cellar. Rare just got a whole lot more rare.

 

Though gose as a style doesnt really excite me, I am more than ok trying just about anything these guys will put out.

 

Gose in six packs I'm stoked!

 

I have this Odd combination of Fear For GI's BA program and excitement for the future of what Off Color can bring. For a long time I've wondered how long brewery's can coast off of BA beers. I've always leaned more towards the rarer styles more than I have been towards BA stuff. Craft beer is supposed to be innovative but how is it innovative if everyone is just arbitrarily Barrel aging everything. It gives me hope to see that especially from someone who was one of the people who arguably started that whole thing.

 

which is why i love pipeworks. i can't keep up on their sku's.

 

FTFY

 

Anyone know if they had any kind of succession plan in place?

Hopefully there has been an apprentice(s) in house that can take over the barrel program and do it right rather than bringing in some AB marketing suit...

Honestly, this is the first time in this whole Goose Island/AB fiasco that I'm a little worried.

 

I think some of the most innovative beers come from small brewery's. Limitations can be a great facilitator for creativity. For example if you ever make it north of Milwaukee you should stop in here. Since they don't have the room to go crazy barrel aging stuff they have to get creative. Take a close look at their Mai bock.

 

At least now, no one can berate Laffler via twitter for sending his beer out of state -- I imagine Off Color will be staying local for quite a while!

And before we get another round of 'Chicken Little/the sky is falling! Goose Island is doomed! I watched Beer Wars!!' type comments, people do leave companies from time to time. It's not like Laffler is the only person at Goose making beer. Time will tell about what's coming from Goose -- and in the meantime, looks like we have another great Chicago upstart to look forward to.

Having said that, with the recent news about Goose's CEO and COO, not to mention the other John Hall, now at 5 Rabbit, this has got to be causing some morale issues. Hell, my own comments above notwithstanding, I'm wondering what's next for the company and who will be providing a vision. More marketing guys from St. Louis/Leuven? Despite all of my faith in the company, I'm just left wondering, a little more strongly now, what's going to happen next.