Goose Island Bourbon County - 2024 (Chicagoland)

Everywhere i go bcbs is at least 13.99 while Parabola doesn't exceed 9.99.
I know bcbs is a couple more ounces but GTFOff our shelves

If they were 5bucks like the post i saw maybe id buy one.

it seems even people in Chicagoland are over it

 

Just one idiot's opinion, but I would easily pick reg BCBS over Parabola every time.

 

Having BCBS on shelves year-round is a sort of ideal, imo. Any time you crave a good BA stout, the father of them all is right there!

I'd like to see them chill a little on the variants, though. I get that the hype factor is a large part of the point, but it gets expensive and it sometimes feels like cutting a little fat each year would go a long way in making the brand fun again.

(Or maybe it's just the price points/from factor I take issue with, who knows)

 

Rather than giving people 6 or 7 options to choose from at once on Black Friday, of which cost conscience people aren’t going to splurge for all at once, they should just release one variant every 2 months over the year. As a consumer I’m more likely to grab what just came out if there is just one released and try it versus loading up on so many at once and having to sit on them

 

As you should, you gotta support the home team!
It's the Main reason why I'd pick Parabola over Budweiser County (Union) Busting Stout

 

This works marvelously for Central Waters. They have a little release party every couple months and if one wanted they could've easily put together the whole set of 25 variants without spending anywhere near $100 at any one time. Buying all as a set at one time would've been hundreds of dollars.

 

The Black Friday release model was great when no one else was making BA Stouts. Now how many other local breweries do something similar around that week? Plus over the last ten years big stouts have proven to sell anytime of year, not just as a fall seasonal. Goose should just pivot to the multiple release throughout the year model and make Black Friday the new BCBS Prop Day with Prop being available for all markets.

 

When it was a unique beer it probably got a lot of sales synergy by being paired with a holiday weekend, now a days id imagine it suffers for competing with a holiday weekend.

 

The pandemic and the ability to pre purchase the entire allocation also doesn’t help hype the beer like years prior where some people would line up a few days prior to release to camp the line while the morning of release saw 1,000+ people in line.

 

100% agree, I'm not sure why people are complaining about availability. We asked for it for years, lol.

100% to this, too. While I'm sometimes nostalgic for the lineup, I really don't want to go back though. I thought last year was great - a chance to try variants early at Prop Day and Fobab, and I found pretty much everything on draft Thanksgiving weekend without any trouble. Double down on that type of celebration and help support those local bars.

 

Yeah, interesting point. I know personally I just do my thing over the weekend and then go check a local grocery store or two whenever I have a second, to see what they've got.

(and this past year I could've just waited until...like tomorrow to buy the beers lol)

 

lol. I read the 1st one and was like “I think I’ll take the 2nd one.” Then I read the 2nd one and my curiosity was piqued by the barleywine. Once I read the rest of the ingredients I became incredibly excited for the 1st option as I have no desire to drink a Pad Thai Barleywine….

 

RE: either Prop label...

 

I hope whoever makes these gets a big kick out if it. Maybe it's a contest among the folks at the Prop shop.

 

I wonder if they could do a hybrid thing, because I'm sure they do like the tradition of Black Friday and the hype it creates (or at least used to create) around the brand.

What if on Black Friday they have a small amount of select retailers that will receive a small number of full allotments. Maybe they bring the old school lines back instead of doing lotteries for the allocation to drive more hype (I'm personally against this and like lotteries, but I can understand why a brewery would want lines to generate hype and excitement). The key though is it can't be a lot of allotments they release that day, but there is a small amount of everything.

Then everywhere else on Black Friday they only release that year's regular BCBS. I have been banging the drum for 4x12 packs, but whatever format they want.

Then, like you suggest, after that point they release 1 variant every couple months throughout the year until the full lineup is released.

I think that way they get the hype of Black Friday by releasing just a very limited amount of everything, and then they get the year round interest from the variant releases. Now I could see them being worried that if initial reviews of a variant are bad, they'd be worried about moving those releases 4-6 months later, but that's already happening at this point.

Just my 2 cents, but like all the ideas in here.

 

As a long time beer nerd, Parabola is a beer I have bought a number of times over the years and every time I buy it I just cannot get into it.