BCBCS: not what it was?

I don't necessarily agree because in that time frame, more than a few breweries, including one I worked at during that period experienced similar problems with our barrel aged product. If you read interviews from within the industry and their programs. Most of them will say a similar thing, and that is nearly entirely a market driven. And its bottleneck happens because of demand. Demand for what's in them originally, and demand for spent barrels. GI expanded their barrel aging program rather significantly in that period, and that created a bottleneck on the warehouse floor because there was no way to examine that many barrels. We can also presume there could have been some cross contamination. BUT.
Circle back to the aforementioned realities in place. and.... Even with their lab, which is the best in the country. And was even before the deep pockets of being acquired happened. That was not something that was possible to do because it amounted to a fools task for cost outlay, and one that would send the MSRP skyward.

 

i'm probably missing it, but specifically, what do you not necessarily agree with?

 

pre-2015 BCBS was thicker, had more of a tobacco/dark chocolate flavor, and while boozy the barrel was perfectly integrated. 2015, 16, and 17 all come across as thinner, more boozy/astringent almost, and missing that dark chocolate/tobacco aspect. I have done side by sides of multiple years to compare as well.

 

Great coffee stout. It's just as good but others have caught up.

 

We noticed a a cherry cough syrup like flavor in ours at about 4 months out from packaging.
Issues with barrels? To really discover what those are requires a significant amount of time and costs added into your MSRP because until you rip them entirely apart. You cannot see everything inside of them. One possible solution would also increase your MSRP rather significantly, and that would be rewetting them. But then ya'll would complain about there being too much heat.

 

Yeah no doubt. Pliny was the best thing around for awhile. Now brewers can essentially make beers just as good as it, and in different variations, which definitely makes it feel less special when lined up with other notables. I guess we're just numb to greatness, so we have to keep pushing the boundaries into insanity.

 

is that legal for a commercial brewery?

 

Very doubtful. I'm strictly speaking of the costs of doing it. The absurdity of doing that with a few hundred barrels is to be noted too.

 

My pro friends say it is not.

 

lol. i'd wager most peeps moderately serious about this topic knew that to be the case. it was a head scratcher though to hear the suggestion come from an employee or former employee of brewery with a barrel aging program.

 

The same friends shake their heads and say it is done at some places, but not theirs.

 

Many people expect beers to always taste the same and then are surprised when they don’t. The opposite should be expected.

First you have batch variation. Exact same ingredients, exact same system...different flavors, gravities, PH, etc. Why?
Micro variations in ingredients (maybe your yeast was a different gen.? Maybe your water profile shifted slightly?) Slight equipment changes i.e. chilled-in a couple degrees cooler causing a slower fermentation start, etc. Hell, maybe the brewer just didn’t have any Chinook lying around so he bittered with Simcoe.

Then you have ingredients variation. Not only year-to-year (where hops can vary by over 50% of their alpha acids!!), but flavor variation in hops from different parts of the same field, or malt from that other side of the farm that got more water than the malt you used in the last batch.

That’s just for a ‘normal’ beer. Throw a barrel in the mix and multiply all that by two because now you inherit all the variation the distilllery experienced. Throw coffee in the mix...well, you get the picture.

The big guys spend MILLIONS making sure Bud Light tastes the same every time and there is STILL variation.
I know Goose is owned by AB; trust me, they don’t test it for consistency like they do Bud.

Also, Goose has had near complete turnover in the brewhouse and cellar since the buyout. When people leave, beer changes. It’s just how it is...

Basically, it is impossible for craft beer to taste exactly the same batch-to-batch, let alone year-to-year. Labs and tasting panels do their best, but ultimately, this is an agricultural product and variation should be expected. Hell, in wine, it’s embraced!
You may like some years more than others. You make like some bottles of the same year more than others. That’s part of the magic...

 

i was curious to see what you didn't agree with because it seems to me you do agree. you may not realize it or how. but...

the pending barrel problem you spoke of was foreseeable. if i could accurately peg it - it seems inexcusible for breweries serious about the business to not have realized what was about to transpire.

this is where we "don't necessarily agree". bottleneck on warehouse floors wasn't the issue. the problem was the barrel market & quality of the supply was about to plummet at the exact moment GI chose to expand.

meaning. they were going to increase their exposure to what was guaranteed to be a less stable supply of barrels. the other brewery you worked at & others mentioned were victims of the same issue. the major difference is their exposure probably didn't increase hundreds of folds on a terribly timed expansion.

 

I had a '16 BCBCS last year and it wasn't anywhere near the '13 or '14's I had. In fact it wasn't as good as regular BCBS. I'm no ciccerone but I can usually guess the ages of a 4 year vertical (blind obviously). Something changed w/16 coffee.

 

Changed ? Was 16 the year they started to pasteurize their beers?