2016 Goose Island BCS - Drink Now!!!!

To be clear, you are advocating drinking now because you think it's at its peak, not because it's bad, right?

 

Yeah BCS keeps really well. I drank a ‘14 a couple weeks ago and it was fantastic. No off flavors or oxidation like most 5 year old beers have.

 

I figured I'd give this a shot. Opened a 2016 tonight and I'm pleasantly surprised.

My original thoughts were 2016 was sub-par to all three later years. This one is straight up chocolate fudge with some undertones of dark fruit.

FWIW, all my 2016's were purchased on Black Friday in 2016 and have been kept at a constant temp (~50) since then.

 

I also recently had a 16 that aged for the better. Tasted more like the 2014 and earlier 12oz bcbs than it did fresh, which is awesome.

 

Barrel aged beers are already ready to drink, they've already been exposed to limited oxidation in the barrel courtesy of the brewery.

Realizing that you're not doing a BA beer any favors by "aging" is a harsh reality, as you've said it's not as thought the beer is ruined, but the brash, assertive barrel character gets mellowed out into a nothing of "smoooooooth", especially when you taste a past it's prime BCBS and realize you could have just aged a significantly cheaper, non-BA beer for the same amount of time to simialr result.

I mostly drink my BA stouts fresh (within 18 months). The only things I consciously "age" are my non-BA stouts and barleywines ( relative cheapies like Expo, Bigfoot, Old Stock, etc) and then of course lambic which is another animal altogether. I still play around with BA Barleywines/ Old Ales, as you forfeit the barrel character but get a really interesting, port like result.

I can deal with a little bit of "cardboard" from over-aged pale beers, but the soy sauce that takes over dark beers always sucks.

 

This seems overly harsh and a viewpoint that (obviously) not everyone agrees with.

BC is my favorite, so this is a topic I take great pride in.

BC when fresh is not just bourbon forward (which I like), but it has a tendency to taste “hot,” and maybe even a bit too alcohol forward, hiding some of the chocolatey, oak, and bourbon goodness that can make it so great.

Fresh, it is still good, but not as good as aged (for my palate). In the past 12 months I have had (I think) every vase BC since (and including) 2009. 2009 tasted more fresh than perhaps any 2014 did that I have had in the past 18 months. 2011 seems less good for whatever reason. 13 is better than 12/14. 12 can sometimes taste a little too oxidized. 15 (non-infected) is fantastic. 16-18 are all good, but 16 and 17 are definitely beginning to show that 2015 and prior signature BC aged flavor/profile. 17 was good fresh, but it is tasting much better now IMo. 16, if I was blind, I would have sworn was a 14.

I don’t think anything is obviously lost by aging them. On the contrary, all the harsh edges get rounded out, and what you are left with is bourbon brownies. Some of the bourbon punch can fade, but so does that obvious “heat” that you can do often taste when it is very fresh (from the base alcohol, not the bourbon).

I have traded for essentially everything that I own and have drank BC-wise, and most that I have traded for have been 3-8 years old at the time of trading. I wouldn’t go back and not make those trades. To the contrary, they were all very worth it.

 

I'm glad you said this since you fundamentally disagreed with what I was saying, and it took you to a dark place (hehe), and I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying.

I know people see the value in aging BCBS, could have explained this position more explicitly, since in reality BCBS is similar to Expedition and Bigfoot - not expensive, easy to get, no adjuncts. I don't see the value in aging BCBS since i can buy it off the shelf year round (multiple vintages) and I like it fresh.

My point (which looking back was silly to make in a BCBS thread) is that it's a damn shame when I hear people go ONE of a beer (say Rare, or Parabola when it was hard to get) and then sit on it for 6yrs and then are like "hmmm not that amazing not sure what everyone is talking about" which is kind of like what the OP was saying about 16 BCBS. If you've ever opened a bunch of "too old" beers, they really do start to taste the same.


To your point of it tasting "hot" fresh, different strokes for different folks, I'm guessing- just for fun, that you don't drink bourbon straight, especially not cask strength bourbon? Not intended as a pissing contest at all, but if you sip Elijah Craig Barrel Proof that's ~123pf (so 61.5%) a 15% stout is going to be a nice refreshing drink on a hot day, in comparison. Again YMMV.

 

All valid.

I am a bit newer to this than many others in this forum, so I have not had many beers that are at the 5-10 year mark besides BCBS. That said, I haven't yet experienced that soy/umami flavor develop that others get. I meant to mention this, but forgot. Also, I think this must be a genetic thing - some people totally get soy out of darklord fresh, while others don't. Conversely, as DL ages, you see more and more people mention that soy sauce flavor. Since you're into bourbon, maybe it's comparable to that vitamin flavor people get with dickel or dill associated with MGP rye.

By and large I only drink my bourbon and scotch straight, and with bourbon I totally enjoy some of the high-proof pours. I'm not a fan of hazmat proofs. Going north of 125 or 130proof starts to sometimes give me heartburn, although the flavor is still enjoyable, and the heat is fine going down. I enjoy ECBP, but the batch i currently have open is right on that 130 mark, and man, definitely too much heartburn some nights. Closer to 120 is much more enjoyable. For some reason, I didn't get the heartburn as much when the bottle was fresh - but I was also working out much more frequently at that point, and I think that's related.

 

@Beer_Economicus and @Prince_Casual , you both make some good points. I would definitely recommend drinking any new to you BA beer as fresh as you can get it. That said, there are some ba stouts that do improve with some age TO ME. You've just got to explore a bit and see what you prefer. In general you shouldn't age any beer you haven't had fresh, its not really an experiment at that point it's just sort of a gamble.
The heat on some ba stouts, to me, isn't so much a problem of being too strong as it is a problem of overpowering the other flavors. Parabola is a big offender in this regard for me. I didn't buy a stout so I could taste bourbon. I want notes of bourbon complimented by other.more traditional dark beer flavors like chocolate and prunes.
Mainly it seems, if you've decided that you are going to get into aging beers you better get in the habit of buying multiples

 

I have a collection of BCBS and related going back to 2009 (still have a couple of those - should get into those when I get a reason)
I make a point of drinking a couple fresh each year, and generally a year old sometime in December. Others I have held, occasionally popping a few here and there.
I usually get about a half dozen standard every year, and sometimes varients, depending.

 

Interesting, I stand corrected on your bourbon preferences. Still surprises me you like BCBS smoothed out because I love it with some fire to it. I am a bit phased out on bourbon these days (though ECBP is still a stunner). Cask strength Islay is my favorite now.

 

For clarity, my decreased amount of enjoyment fresh compared to age is not about the bourbon. I love the punch in the face; that’s the reason why I love it so much, and why it is the king of BA stouts for me. Instead, it is about the “taste of alcohol,” which I understand is non-sensical, so let me explain. One reason that I drink my whiskey straight up is because when water (more than a couple drops) or ice (which melts and becomes water) is because all I taste at that point is alcohol. Literally, alcohol. I don’t taste bourbon or whiskey, just alcohol. Similarly, no matter the style of beer I drink everyone the same: I sip. Heavier beers I sip slower, but still the AMOUNT of liquid I pull into my mouth is small. If I bring too much in (and especially if I have enough alcohol in my mouth to swallow twice: all I taste is alcohol.

With Fresh BCBS, it is definitely not the ONLY thing I taste, but it is a taste that I get, which I do not get when BCBS hits even 2 years of age.

This is far more detail than most people wanted, but hopefully it is interesting for some and helpful to others.