Goose Island Bourbon County Stout overload?

The base beer isn't that difficult to acquire, but some of the variants are a muddertrucker to pick up unless you part with a decent amount of cash.

As they should be. Same goes for beers like Dark Lord.

 

I’m not exactly sure what you are getting at here, but yeah “regular” BCBS has been widely available and sitting on the shelves for prolonged periods for at least the last couple of years. Hell, I’ve seen 2019 BCBS still sitting on the shelves at the last two bottle shops I’ve been two (one a big box liquor/beer store in Fl and the other a mom and pop little bottle shop in SC).

And this year, the regular plus 3 of the variants (Caramella, Special #4 and Kentucky Fog) are still on the shelves here in FL. Personally, I love it. I enjoy cellaring beers and BCBS and variants age remarkably well. So every time I go to the beer store (which is admittedly not very often), I tend to grab a regular, a Special #4, and a couple Caramellas (didn’t really love Ketucky Fog so don’t grab one every time). I could literally walk in a buy a case of each, so I don’t really consider it hoarding, there’s plenty to go around and I will enjoy these, spaced out, over many years. The Caramella I do have a bit of a problem with though, I literally cannot get enough of that beer, I think it’s phenomenal, so I may grab a whole case next time I’m at the store.

More BCBS is not a problem for anyone.

 

Making dumb variants is the only problem with BCBS these days

*pick ONE*
Coffee
Vanila
Berry fruit

Also the refusal to bring back the regular unadulterated "3rd use barrel" barleywine is somewhat unforgivable at this point. I actually like the wheatwine as it's own thing, but King Henry and those early batches of BCBBW (two, believe third batch when they switched to 500ml bottles and all were infected) were amazing. I pray with more "specialty barrel" BCBS the last couple years (with no adjuncts) at least a small amount will get reused for the barleywine recipe

 

Personally, the only variant I really thought was stupid was Coffee Barleywine; and it just didn’t really work IMO. Kentuck Fog not my fav but I certainly didn’t hate it. I actually have really liked some of the other more exotic ones, like the bananas foster Prop I thought was stellar. I like the experimentation but I definitely agree with your sentiment regarding the regular barleywine. That should certainly be a yearly staple. Even more inexcusable is the lack of “regular” Coffee. Special #4 is really good, Cafe De Olla I actually really liked as well. But man, regular old BCB Coffee Stout is an all time elite beer IMO, and when’s the last time we got one of those? It’s been years!

 

Cafe Olla was good, but like you said it wasn't BCBCS. Although I will add if you have cold brew coffee and add a ~2oz shot to your glass, then pour a reg BCBS in... it really does get you 99.9% of the way to BCBCS, and that is more or less how they do it (slight drop in abv, you can do reverse math if you want to get it exact).

A couple clarifications:
1) I'm not saying the recent variants "taste bad", I just think they are dumb / not what people desire / weird for the sake of being weird (think dogfishhead). They also do not appear to be selling very well, at all.

2) I was not including Props, those are typically logical concoctions. London Fog might be good, but for the flagship label, of the flagship "craft brand", of ABINBEV... it just seems crazy that this off the wall stuff makes it to production. 2018 was the last year that national distro had an interesting lineup IMO, aside from the coffee BW which like you said didn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

This! X100 I haven’t purchase a variant since vanilla. I love regular though!

 

I'm less hyped on collecting BCBS than I was a few years ago. I used to chase all over town getting my hands on the few regulars I could find, and the first few years there were no variants here. Now we get two or three variants plus regular, in a vastly increased quantity, and regular sticks around for 12-18 months.

I'm also more into reviewing new singles than drinking old favorites, have gotten into sours and NEIPAs, and I've had to cut down on high-ABV beers for health reasons. I didn't buy much BCBS in 2020 (one regular, six variants) and will get even less this year. The add-junks in the variants seem to fade quickly, so no point hoarding/aging them.

 

Put it in 4 packs, make the price per bottle 75% of what it is

 

I bought a couple of bottles this year, never really cared for the most of the variants. There are so many good BA stouts available now and I'd rather keep trying those. Budweiser Bourbon County Brand Stout, just doesn't work for me....

 

Is OP saying he has a big inventory for his store, or he has a bunch in his cellar?

 

I guess the question comes down to are they doing the out of the box some would say crazy variants in an effort to find the next big thing (i mean hell 12 years ago or whatever if you woulda saw an imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels with vanilla added you woulda thought it was exotic and perhaps a bit crazy) or are they doing it primarily as a gimmicky marketing technique to move more product each year. The reality is it is probably some combination of both, although I suspect it may be more of the former. also, and this is somewhere off topic and probably more appropriate for a different thread, but I think you could make the argument that all these ridiculous “smoothie“/hazy/juicy/lactose whatever nonsense IPAs that are super popular right now are just as gimmicky (i would even say moreso) than adding unique adjuncts to bourbon county. Regardless, perhaps the happy medium would be regular, coffee, and barley wine every year; plus a “standard“ variant that rotates such as vanilla or some type of dark fruit, then keeping the prop for the exotic off-the-wall things. That being said I actually don’t really have a beef with what they’re doing now, just wish the regular coffee and regular barley wine would go back to being staples.

To each their own, but I would say This is a mistake. Especially now that they are relatively easy, or at least much easier, to obtain. unless you are really opposed to adjunct stouts I do not see why you would fade all the recent bourbon county variants. 2018 had several very good varieties in addition to vanilla, 2019 Mon Cheri was excellent and wheatwine very good. all the reserves that I’ve had have been exceptional or at least close to that, and I’ve only had three of the 2020 variance but to me all are 100% worth the price of purchase and very easy to get. So if you love the regular, I am not Exactly sure why you would avoid even trying the variants especially when you can just walk into a bottle shop and buy one.

 

Ive just always preferred single adjuncts. I love vanilla, so I would rather enjoy every aspect of that vanilla rather than pick it out among other flavors. For me maple is the same way. I love it so much on its own, I avoid most maple beers cause it seems most also tend to have coffee (or other things) added as well.

@zac16125

 

Again, to each their own, and I am starting to come off as a bourbon county apologist here ( which is somewhat ironic because I actually am not a goose Island fan and think that essentially all of their year round releases suck and even many of their formally pseudo hyped farmhouse ales/ sours/etc aren’t particularly good, I just think they absolutely crush Bourbon County); but I actually think both bourbon county and the variants age phenomenally well. There are some exceptions, midnight orange the orange faded really fast, the double chocolate prop wasn’t much different than regular rather quickly after release; but the other fruited ones such as Bramble, Cherry Rye or even Northwoods hve kept their adjunct flavors very well. OG Vanilla went many years with a remarkable ability to hold up that vanilla character, and I’ve even had various props at three, four, even five years which held up very well. I actually comment on this oddity of adjuncts holding up quite commonly in the Cellar Review thread ( by the way great thread if anyone likes Cellaring beers). What I think is interesting, and I’m not trying to call you out specifically on this but it’s more of a comment on the general Bourbon County vibe at this point, is that I think it’s likely dropping in popularity (or at least hype) because of its availability. It’s an unfortunate thing but a reality of the craft beer market, the more something becomes available the less desire able people find it to be. They’ve obviously massively increased the production of both Bourbon County and the majority of the variants they release each year, thus they sit on the shelves and people think they are no longer special, and tend to loss interest in them. it’s just what happens in the current craft beer scene. If KBBS hit national distro and was readily available to people year around, you can bet your ass that it would drop in ratings. It’s just the nature of the beast, although really this is fine with me I am able to get much more of one of my favorite series of beers then I ever have before, I don’t have to wait in line for it, and I have plenty to enjoy both fresh and after time in the cellar. So I guess maybe not a win-win for all, but I’ll certainly chalk it up as a win for me.

 

Well that’s fair. Still, try Caramella. Unless you don’t like sweet boozy booze, then definitely don’t haha.

 

if I do I will let you know what I think!

 

Regular BC is still on the floor. Any others were long gone the same day.

 

Several of the top tier GI bourbon county beers have been available in certain San Antonio HEB supermarkets for a couple weeks now. I have gotten a few bottles and still have one. All have been worthy of their status and ratings. Whether they are better than other years, I am not sure as I haven't had enough of other years to intelligently comment. Prices have been $13-23/bottle.

 

For the first time that I can recall BCBS is available around here. The base is on sale everywhere at about $13/bottle.
As far as any of the variants are concerned

 

Because covid I've only gone in one beer store, but that place did not have too much, but did have one of variants which I've rarely seen. For me I always liked the standard, but rather have it back in 12oz bottles and had enough other stuff in cellar for this year anyway, so pass