Bourbon County 2017

I’m the idiot for standing the whole line without a ticket, but honestly there was a lot of confusion and misinformation going around. Like some of you, I got there around 515 and ended up with barleywine and regular at LP. No one had a full idea what was happening with the line, the tickets were an Office Depot roll of church charity raffle tickets (apparently), 4 points of sale, etc. If I have to go to a beer release before 5 am, I’m out, you guys. Seems to be my upper bound.

However, if this isn’t the year that puts the nail in the shantytown binnys lp coffin, I’m not sure what will. Prop day was an absolute delight in comparison and I’d very much welcome goose doing their own distribution in Illinois.

 

We went after several of the people we saw moving in front of people that had been their hours earlier. Other than reporting these people, I don’t know what else we can do. I don’t think it was the amount of tents this year as much as the drinking in line which caused a lot of the problems. We had easily 150 people cut through a gap in the line because several groups in front of us were just waking up or were super intoxicated and had no clue what was going on. LP was totally unprepared for this year. They should have had a preplaned route to follow instead of leaving it to us to figure out. One of the employees we spoke with before we picked up our allotment did not seem to care in the least. They know they have us and we are not going away. I just wished they cared a little

 

Reserve and Prop 17 kicked. Most of the cool vintage stuff too.

Source: I've been here since noon and I am smashed

 

No prop here

 

Had a plan today to hop around to different Jewels in the NW burbs. Got to Palatine location at 6:50 and was ~20 in line, waiting inside. They had one case of BW and 25 cases of regular.

They said you can buy 4 at a time, then get back in line. After I bought my first 4, around 7:10, there was no line. So rinse, repeat.

Got my fill of regular 17 for the year and beyond. Didn't even go to another Jewel. Had friends texting if I wanted any more and I turned them down. They were reporting limit of 2, etc.

Jewel was the way to go this year if you didn't care about variants.

 

Had a great, hassle free day in Ohio. Friendly group in line, well organized. Got reg, northwoods, coffee and BW. GI reps brought out coffee and donuts to the line along w trivia. Was able to get more Northwoods than coffee or barleywine which I thought was strange. Overall a great day and lots of entertainment from this thread.

 

For regulars Costco was the way to go. Unlimited supply at $8.99 a bottle. Honestly, cheers to them.

Binnys upcharged its regular +$2 over others but they should.

 

How were quantities on the other variants? I was up at 5 but it was because my little guy was sick. Ended up at Jewel before 7 but only for pedialyte and children's Tylenol. Looks like they had things pretty organized.

 

This has nothing to do with aging the beer, shipping, storing, or anything else. You got a bad bottle. I've seen this happen with bottles and even cans, of totally fresh IPAs, let alone many months old stouts. Here you're talking about a relatively old ass beer, in what's most likely to be flawed glass.

I understand you've been on a "don't cellar your beer" crusade for years now, but wtf does this have to do with his scenario? Have you never had aged beer before in your life? You must have had some kind of serious abnormality that put you near your death bed for this to be such a serious issue for you. I've had multiple beers that were nearly decades old that had no issues, and actually tasted quite delicious. This situation here has nothing to do with aging beer. Shit's as fresh as it gets.

They have not had any issues since starting the flash pasteurization @CannedWaggoneer

 

Binnys should just get temp workers to pass out tickets starting at like 5am They know the demand. Let everyone know exactly what number they are and no line jumping. Save everyone the trouble.

And the other Binnys in Chicagoland. If you only have 2-5 cases of variants, let those in line know about it like an hour before hand. Saw them at grand walking up and down and counting people in line but not mentioning how much they had. The majority waiting at Binnys are not there for regular and bw. Those can be found easily throughout the city.

 

Total debacle.This was Binny's call to allocate their allotment primarily to LP. Shit show exacerbated by guaranteeing multiple bottles of most variants vs. shifting when they realized there were more customers by 5/6 AM then they could accommodate. I went during the same time the past two years, was 547 last year, SOL this year beyond BW/R.

Oh well, I'll switch to another merchant in 2018, both for BF and the rest of the year. When Jewel beats you in price, availability and customer service, it's a sad state of affairs.

 

I arrived at LP Binny's at 7:30 PM Thanksgiving Day. I knew going in it was going to be a sh#t show and had no real expectations on how things would go down because it was my first time coming to LP for the Black Friday release. I did not mind the "shanty town" aspect of the "event."
It was fun for a little bit, but then cold set in and that made things miserable for a a good couple hours. Beyond that, everything else was fine. Met some good peeps in line and ended up getting a very good allocation of some great tasting beer. Yes, it took a long time to get in and out or the purchasing line, bet beyond that all other complaints are superfluous. Everybody knew what was going on heading into this thing. The Chicago craft beer scene is insane and I pick and choose how I want to deal with it ( go or not go). Buy the ticket take the ride.

I encountered the person that was passed out half way in to the port-a-potty. He was a mess and it was concerning that many people just passed this guy with out concern. Myself and a couple other people tried to get him to tell us where his crew was so we could get help for him. It just so happened that one of his "buddies" was coming out of a port-a-potty and noticed all of us around the passed out guy. Buddy comes over and starts laughing and said something to the effect "oh, (insert name) does this all the time, he is fine, it sucks because he is one of my mules, blah blah blah. He had no real concern for his "friend." I asked what he was going to do to help him and he replied " what can I do?"
'

 

I'd estimate 8 cases of Northwoods, 12-16 cases of all the other variants, and about 20-25 cases of regular. It was very organized, no complaints here besides the weird partial case of Reserve.

 

I was fortunate to get one of the last proprietor bottles being around 1050ish in line. I’m little sore after getting there at 5 and leaving at 1, but overall I’m happy with this event. The people that I was around were the reason this morning was a success for me. I should have been a little earlier for the full allotment, but then again FiBin’ ain’t easy. . .

 

If anyone in Chicago got a Bourbon County box with the dividers in it and is planning on discarding, please let me know! Would come in handy for an upcoming beer move. Thanks!

 

Da Jewelz were definitely a mixed bag. The one closest to me (87th and Ridgeland) were completely clueless and had no idea that they were supposed to be selling BCBS. Nothing there. 95th and Pulaski only had BCBS and it was limit one.

 

Reading this thread is hilarious, you guys went through all this for a beer from the brewers who gave you V Formation & Tempo Black..hahahahaha

 

You were right behind my son, his friend and me. Hard to believe they only had two cases of NW and Reserve. Glad you found the NW. Cheers!

 

For info, regarding a box for moving you can get an empty box with dividers at any ol' Binny's.