Bourbon County 2018

Goose Island hammers home this idea of the limited availability of the variants every year. I don’t expect Vanilla to be any more or less rare than any other variant and didn’t get the impression that they meant Vanilla was going to be the rarest one or harder to get than any other one.

 

Sure - in recent years I felt that original has had some overarching flavor that stuck out. Last year for me it was chocolate, 2016 was smoke and char, in other years the bourbon was more present. This year I felt like it didn't have any stand out flavor. You'll still get notes of chocolate, bourbon, char, coffee etc but I felt it seemed different than in year's past.

So to answer your question, for me there is not the same bourbon flavor in this year's original as there has been in the past. Whenever I write these articles I always emphasize that my palate is going to be different than others so what I get and you get might be different. Also - we'll see how the beer changes from last week to Black Friday.

 

Just like palates are different, so is what we hear

 

Nope - no differences there that I heard. It's interesting because the barrels age for different times. As they get checked when the beer is ready, it's taken out. That's where the blending comes into play. You can't say original was aged for 8 months because it's all over the place.

 

@snoopdme I'm curious if you have had the Wheatwine GI puts out at their block party (or has for the last couple years). I've had it a number of times and haven't been that impressed (fine beer, but not something worthy of the BC label). How does the bottled version compare?

 

Sorry, I've never had it at the block party before. I will say that I was impressed with the wheatwine this year. It's a nice way to break up the stout flavors if you're doing a full tasting or just want something different that's still barrel-aged. I actually have Surly's wheatwine in my fridge that I'm excited to try too.

 

Damn. Higher ABV's this year no? I don't remember regular being 15+ ever. Color me excited.

 

Hasn't been that high since.....2012?

 

IIRC 2012 was 15% flat. I don't recall anything above 15% but, then again, I fancy ~15% stouts, so . . . .

 

I still hate the new format, especially if they are gassing it up to 15%.

 

Yes, thanks for responding here! Don’t suppose you have any insight into the Neapolitan, and what the purpose was of that headfake? I’m still holding out remote hope that they eventually release that one.

 

Assuming there is a Prop Day this year, is it time to start baseless speculation on date? I know last year it was the Sunday before Thanskgiving, but FOBAB was the weekend prior. Wrinkle this year is that FOBAB is the weekend before Thanksgiving this year - so wondering if goose is going to pull that off AND prop day in the same weekend...

 

Rumor has it they are going to have to rename it "Reserve Day" because they got sick of Carrot Top showing up to Prop Day....

 

There was no mention of the fake out BCBS and near as anyone can tell that's all they really were. Just a fake out to get people talking.

 

I'm more of a Gallagher man, myself. They'll probably save an appearance fee for him once we get the double watermelon variant.

 

I don't have any insight into the head fake, but Goose is always surprising people.

 

I think the main intention with the "fake labels" was that Goose doesn't like that TTB spoils the announcement of variants. Goose wants to be the first to let people know what they're releasing.

 

I'm not sure I'd call the format "new" anymore.

 

However you want to refer to it, it sucks.