Prairie Brimstone Bomb

I'm hoping the concern Patrick raisesd is why there was so little of this beer. Hopefully it was a small keg of premature beer, and the bottles spent more time aging. The barrel was definitely lacking tonight compared to say Pirate Bomb.

 

I don't think the criticism is fair. It was incredibly easy for me to try all of the Prairie beers at WTF!? because I made it a priority and went there in the first 30 minutes. Their line was pretty quick, and they had a constant stream of people going through it so they poured a ton of beer. Prairie only brewed about a thousand bottles of coolship truck (not that much liquid can fit in the bed of a pickup truck), so yeah, that one ran out in about 45 minutes. Almost every brewer there ran out of their best beers at some point, and a lot of them started running out around the same time prairie did. Pretty sure Cantillon Kriek was gone a lot quicker than Coolship too.

 

I placed my order at 5:20 and was told they were out. Kind of crazy, I saw people, but I didn't think there was nearly enough to blow the keg that quickly. I did try my friends and thought it was super chocolately, maybe my expectations were high, and I was whelmed, I'll look for a few bottles as I would like to get the opportunity to try more than an ounce or so. Still shocked it went so quickly, lol. We went to liberty tavern after that for BBH.

 

Would like to see a pic of the glassware please !!!

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=735561183192416

That whiskey glass was a great deal at $17 or whatever, they run $7-9 empty.
I thought the Brimstone Bomb was nice. Subtle, yeah, but the barrel aging rounded out the rougher edges of bomb, and gave it some smokiness. It was served pretty cold, too. I think the bottles might be more distinct.

 

Haven't had it yet but my guess is that the adjuncts in Bomb! overwhelm the smoky whiskey notes the barrel imparts. I much prefer Prairie's Noir variants.

 

I've got a trade set up already!

I think I paid $10 per when Winston the balconies rep met me at Flix to sell me a few in the parking lot. Came in a nice box too. Love those glasses.

The smoke really came through but other barrel notes that I look for were absent. Maybe its because of what you mentioned. Smokiness was spot on and I fear that more barrel aging will lend to more smokiness which might turn off a few people. I'm thinking they should have used different barrels or a different base beer like some have mentioned.

 

There are several flaws in your argument:

1) You can't compare the brewery offerings at WTF to the Cantillon offerings. The Cantillon beers, including Kriek and Fou, were at the Shelton Brothers table, and were on the schedule as only being served for 30 minute periods. So you knew when they were going on, and that they were limited, and could line up for them accordingly. Perhaps if Coolship was going to be so limited, it should have been at the Shelton table and on the schedule.

2) More importantly, your argument about limited amount makes no sense, since Prairie was serving Coolship in the main GABF hall for the entire weekend! If they had enough to serve thousands of people over multiple days (and I did get to taste it there), they certainly had enough to bring to the special event they were part of, if they wanted.

Jester King was pouring Fen Tao, Atrial, and Aurelian (among others) at WTF!?, their line was huge, and they only ran out of Atrial, and only after several hours.

If you're going to be a part of a special event, maybe bring enough beer to last more than 20 minutes.

 

Solution is .... Get a BIGGER truck !!!

 

ISO Coolship Dump Truck

 

Stoked on this showing up in bottles so we can finally trade! haha

 

Neither I nor anyone else in my party could taste any difference at all in the Bomb and the Brimstone Bomb. No smokiness. No barrel. We tried them both blind. Disappointed.

 

Price wise any difference?

 

We had the flight of Bomb-Brimstone-BrimstoneBomb so I don't know. I think the flights were $18, which I thought was a very reasonable price.

 

Patrick, didn't know you guys were there, must have missed you and Mike. I thought the Brimstone Bomb was good but I like regular and the other varients much better. While it seemed more chocolatey than the regular, the smokiness was a bit stronger than I would have liked while the wood/barrel was far weaker. Also, the event itself, IMO, left a bit to be desired.

Pros:

There seemed to be enough Brimstone (the whisky) and regular Bomb to go around. I was there until 6:15 or so and I still saw people getting pours of both.
Both the Brimstone whisky pours and Brimstone Bomb pours were reasonably priced, especially since they came (or were supposed to come) with glassware. Too often, bars will gouge on special tappings like this.

Cons:

I arrived right at 5 PM. There was a decent crowd at the bar but didn't seem too bad. The indoor seating also looked somewhat sparse. However, it took me until 5:40 PM for me to get served at the bar. I got one of the last pours of Brimstone Bomb at the bar and somehow received one of the last glasses for both the beer and whisky. I think the bartender rewarded my patience for standing there for 30 mins patiently while he served the seated patrons and waitresses. Other standees were bitching about the glassware while I said not a word--I suspect I was rewarded for not being an asshole.

Irregardless, I can understand other people being pissed when they stand at the bar for 20-30 mins and then are told that all the glassware and pours are gone due to the avalanche of table tickets being taken. Tickets can apparently be logged faster than people can be served at the bar with the tickets bumping those standing at the bar out of the queue for pours. There were others behind me that were there nearly as long as I was that were told they could not have a pour or glass because of all the tickets that needed to be serviced. In the future, apparently we should all sit at tables rather than order at the bar. I really like Easy Tiger on regular nights but they dropped the ball for this event.

Takeaways:

Prairie, as discussed above, bring more beer to your special events. If you are including glassware, at least make sure you have enough to pour the entire beer allocation you do bring.
Easy Tiger, don't take more orders than you can manage. If there is a limited keg, allocate the number of orders to the size of the keg and take them evenly at the tables and the bar. There are many bars across the country that manage to do this, you should include yourself on that list in the future. I have no doubt that this resulted in a loss of business. More than one disgruntled customer walked out without ordering anything due to how this was handled. With better handling, those customers would have likely stayed and ordered a regular Bomb or other tap offering.

 

Austinites - those of you who missed out have another chance in about a week -

http://prairieales.com/event/quickie-pickie-prairie-pint-night-austin/

albeit at one of my least favorite retail spots

 

lol, 23 glasses

 

Ding Ding Ding!!!