Bourbon County 2017

Was my number one beer I was looking forward to. Well I don't have to try to track one down and drop $50

 

Pouring salt in the wound...

 

Maybe the beer did turn that bad in a couple of months.

But honestly, if there's a chance any of their beers turn to the point of being unfit to sell, they should be giving all of them more time.

They absolutely hope some beer gets better with age. If they didn't believe that, why are there still kegs of past releases constantly popping up at GI itself? Wouldn't they want to have it all consumed ASAP if they don't expect it to get better, or at least be worthy of being sold? They're selling Prop '14 and Vanilla Rye for a HUGE premium at the tap room. If they expected their beers to get worse with age, they'd be selling them for a discount.

 

Unfortunately most of us will probably never get to taste it if it is keg only.

 

It is possible, but the sales rep would probably never send it. A local gas station near Milwaukee got an allocation last year based on 312 sales but the rep never sent it. It went to a better known account instead.

 

If anyone says that the beers you referenced are as good or better as they were fresh, they are lying. In the case of these beers, it's not that they are better. It's that they are more rare. This is the only justification for the tap room costs.

 

And how secondary market value is. Wasn't Goose Clybourn selling bottles for $100 plus before they closed last year? They know what they're doing.

 

What about a BCS Funnel Cake variant?

 

I didn't say better. But GI clearly doesn't think they're unsellable. And those beers are 3 years older than the beer they just pulled out. For a beer to go from "Fantastic" and "Incredible" to unable to be sold in 4 months deserves to be questioned.

And some of those beers were definitely better after a few months. Maybe you didn't think so, but plenty of people did.

 

A few months of mellowing is a far different flavor profile than 3+ years. I can totally appreciate that.

Honestly, my take is that GI was starting the hype train as early as possible. And chances are the people responsible for crafting media messages have little to nothing to do with people who are actually producing/tasting the beer.

 

Unless I am missing something, this technically was an experiment for them.

As the age of the barrels increases, it becomes more difficult to know what will come out (and how much). As I understand it, the BW Reserve did not just go into 35 year old barrels, but it went into the same 35 year barrels that Rare came out of.

I fully believe they could have tried a small amount, and it was great, but after mixing, or after mixing and a little time, that something just did not come out right.

They had every reason to hype it when they expected it would be good, and sampling indicated so. After all, it's an homage to BCBBW of years pre-2015.

What I am surprised about is the flak rather than curiosity. If they had released it and people detected any sort of off or bad flavors (completely UNrelated toninfection), people would have pitched a fit. But they did the right thing and people are upset...still.

 

2014 "regular" BCS tastes better now than it did fresh. IMO.

 

Drank a lot of BCBS and variants with a group of friends the other weekend. It was a good night. This included 13-16 regular side by side. Several folks, myself included, preferred in order 13, 15, 14, then 16. All were great. The last few times we've popped a 15 (non-infected bottles) it's been fantastic.

 

Does pasteurizing the beer affect the flavor at all? I had one bottle last year and it didn't taste quite as good as previous years from what I could remember.

 

Per Jared in this article from last fall, no.

 

They have people sampling these barrels if I recall correctly, on a weekly if not daily basis. There is no way this should have turned before they would have been aware it was time to get it out of barrels... My two cents is either they have it and they just don't have sufficient quantities for distro release so it will be a special keg beer or they think it will cut into other BCBS sales so they will hold it until next year for release(maybe when they finally finish clearing out Rare stock....

 

I thought about that they might not have the quantity. I wondered that.

It will be jaw-dropping for me if they release it next year. That'd be so...sheisty.

 

Or they can just say, it needed more time.

 

I think you're oversimplifying here. You're saying that because they hold back beer, they must think it gets better with age? That completely disregards the fact they sold the majority at the initial release. It's not black and white - they don't necessarily look at it as simple as "better or worse with age".

Many places with a barrel program hold back beers because a lot of us think it's fun to drink something like that 3 years after you had it fresh. GI is just trying to capitalize on things like that.

 

There is a big difference between aged BCBS and aged adjunct BCBS. I wholeheartedly support the mellowing and smoothness that are present in aged '12 - '14 reg. '13 is drinking fantastic right now. But the muted adjuncts from aged variants create a beer that is a shell of its former self.

In any event, I'm looking forward to Josh Noel's review today of Prop '17: Banana Bukake.