Bourbon County Barleywine

staying on topic, my belief is if they use bullshit barrels they probably aren't going to get as much product as would be hoped. now back off topic slightly.

i have heard this & no, none's fallen out of the sky = i never will.

a broken clock is right twice a day. in the past fitty fitty used Griffin to hand select their barrels. there is an art to doing so. that's why brewers pay him money to do it for them. we've bought barrels (private bottled whiskeys), the trick is (analogy-wise) finding Pappy quality but getting it bottled as Weller. finding a few honey barrels by hand is a shitload easier than having Heaven Hill fill up 18 wheelers with random barrels for you. doing it that way represents a broken clock is wrong 23 hours & 58 minutes per day. under-dig?

but, & i've mentioned before many times we were coming out of the "golden American whiskey era".

to reiterate the era was made up of an accidental glut of whiskey that happened to turn out great. but everyone's ignored it turned out great by MISTAKE - apparently even brewers. it reached un-precedented maturation ages by default due to NO DEMAND for it at usual marketing age. another MISTAKE that miraculously worked out. also ignored are the consequences & expected reaction/correction to the MISTAKES.

i suspect GI is a premiere of what's to come & brewers are about to become more familiar with what current distillers have hoped no-one paid attention to or knew about. all of that's to say the following:

1. GI might be better... or had been... at getting the most out of their barrels - but if their barrels stop giving back high usable yields - then what??
   
   
2. you being my neighbor hopefully you can identify with this formula - GI said it made at least 10 times as much BCBS last release. i told folks early on 10 X 0, still = 0. thus far, that's about how much BCBS i've seen floating in Cali - months after it's Tribune quoted release date. you?

 

I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that the fact that Eclipse Rebel Yell is pretty good is an accident? Wouldn't that go against your idea about the brand of barrels being important? You can't just dismiss that out of hand. You have a hypothesis that makes a prediction, and your prediction has proved wrong. Anyone reasonable is going to see that as a problem with your hypothesis. Saying "they got lucky" is a weaksauce defense.

Again, I'm not sure what you're saying here. So there was "accidentally" more good whiskey than normal, meaning more good barrels, and once those get used we'll start to see the quality of BB beers go down? Is that it? Do you have any actual evidence that yields were low? It seems more likely that there was higher-than-expected demand in their core markets and so they kept product back. I'm really not sure where you're going with that.

 

I saw the Beer Street Journal post, but are we positive that this barleywine isn't aged in former BCBS barrels?

 

Any word on when this is getting sent out to distro? Lock eyes, from across the room. Down my drink as the rhythms boom...

 

I have disposed of many turds courtesy of you Jimbo.

 

ding ding ding!! we have a winner.

that's why it still all over in a few select original markets & places like NY but missed later targets?

do you think maybe history repeated itself? correct me if i'm wrong, the 2011 release, seems to me they anticipated a secondary bottling, which later turned to keg only for most markets including ours. could it be remotely possilble they anticipated a secondary bottling this release for later scheduled markets? perhaps said bottling didn't pan out as planned like 2011? seems to me CA is again reduced to kegs per last minute claims, cept i haven't seen a single keg this go around - have you?

proof??? lol. would a Ouija board qualify?

 

damn, another abbreviation to teach newbies.

 

the distribution figures you've seen in the papers are relative, meant to give the impression that most markets will be getting the good stuff--bcbs and the sours--when in truth, far fewer will end up getting them. with the nationwide expansion, the incentive for the distributors is to buy and then push the classics on the stores, so as to earn the right to buy and selectively allocate bcbs and the sours. being in california, expect to receive bcbs--perhaps nowhere close to as much as you'd like, but some. be aware of which stores receive it. do they push bud product or the goose classics? there you have it. how easy it is to play when you can pay.

another reason for the perceived limited supply of bcbs is that demand in the midwest--hell, in chicago alone--proved to be far greater than goose anticipated. so they kept more of it in the midwest, in part to satisfy chicagoans and maintain the brand's identity. and they will continue to keep more of it in the midwest. this winter, bcbs has been found in grocery stores and pharmacies. it is now a blip on the beer radar of the general public.

now, your speculations about the quality of the barrels used and diminishing yields have little to no grounding. granted, a barrel-aging program is no sure bet. the temperamentality of barrels is part of the mystique to both the brewer and the drinker. should we really be surprised that a barrel-aged yield is nowhere close to 100%? given that goose's barrel program has expanded over the past couple of years, the losses in barrel-aged beer correlate with an influx of barrels.

also, good luck finding comprehensive literature or brewing courses on the subject of barrel aging. here in america, many of the existing barrel programs were started as total crapshoots, operating on trial and error and bearing results that were either so good, they were named an immediate triumph, or so bad and weird, they were hoped to be salvaged in the name of innovation. i think jeffers richardson, matt bryndilson, jim cibak, and john laffler would be humble enough to admit to as much.

 

I must confess... I never tried a barley wine (always wondered if a barley wine would satisfy my very pro-stout palate)
as you can tell by my avatar, this release might send me over the edge.

 

I'm mainly a stout drinker as well...but barley wines are delicious...certainly worth trying at least once...now get on it.

 

will do sir! that's a homework assignment this prof can complete quickly

 

All I have to say is this BETTER come in California in 4pks. Come on, InBev flex those distribution muscles, bitch.

 

while i'm not the fact fairy here's a few facts to contend with. most of them might be coincidental in your view, but none the less they are facts.

1. Heaven Hill appears to be GI's main barrel supply source
2. GI's main barrel source has recently discontinued it's premium brand, Elijah Craig 18. coincidentally, they did so right after i pointed out the old premium glut is going extinct.
3. in the same period, unless i'm missing something, GI repeatedly missed it's advertised target with product reliant upon barrels. that's even though it's expanded its barrel capacity significantly, as you noted.
4. GI tried it's luck with some bottom shelf Heaven Hill barrels. coincidentally the results sound like bottom shelf beer, thus far.
5. as far as the nowhere close to 100% comment... if the BCBS *Rare* info is correct, (49/50 barrels utilized), that sounds an awful lot like 98% to me.

#5 may be coincidence to you - to me it goes back to my original thought which was specific barrels are better/it does matter.

 

Anticipation and Erection - Anticiperection

 

Or Erecticipation.

 

Fear boner.

 

Such. a. funny. show!

 

Sounds like the same misrepresentation of facts that led to the "Mayan Apocalypse" craze, and look where that went. Show something more that mere conjecture and opinions, like actual facts of a scientific nautire directly linking premium barrels to premium flavor. Otherwise your claims are nothing more than "I like premium spirits, if premium barrels are used, then premium results will happen in beer put into said barrels." I have found through empirical proof that the grade of bourbon whiskey really does not matter to the degree at which you are intending to hype it. My homebrew experiments have found negligible differences, however they all have the same result- the same bourbon whiskey characteristics in every batch. For example- the batch with Old Crow had a noticeable cola, coconut, vanilla, etc that all of the other variations had, just slightly lighter in degree.

My point is this: the barrel does not matter in the end, it is the quality and care with which the base beer is brewed. If a BA beer is deficient in quality, it is not the barrels fault, it is the brewer. A statement like "if they had only used X barrels instead of Y, this beer would have been better" is like saying "if only the farmer had used cow B instead of cow A, this yogurt would have been better." In beer the end result is a showcase of the skill or creating a fermentables wort, and managing that fermentation to the end. The barrels are just the floor mats in the car if you will, they don't show the actual craftsmanship of the car, they are just the aesthetic accoutrements, not the quality of the piece in itself.

 

https://dabble.co/courses/chicago-s...-science-of-barrel-aging-beer/schedules/70861

This class is coming up, 3 spots left as of right now. Could be interesting and offer some info on all this.

 

Didn't Elijah Craig simply REPLACE the 18 year old with a 20 year old variation? Not discontinue it?