Goose Island Bourbon County - 2021 (Chicagoland)

Kind of odd that we haven't naturally evolved to enhance such advanced processes human to human, and instead we let the beaver beat us to it.

Oh wow, how many meanings can that sentence have?

 

Still no bottled Templeton Rye variant.

Sigh.

 

Bring back Coffee BCBS. Other than that, I'm all for a variety of different barrel treatments without adjuncts.

 

There seems to be a clearly successful annual formula here. In addition to regular there should be:

1) coffee;
2) "3rd use" barleywine (BCBBW);
3) a fruit variant;
4) something for the pastry boys; and
5) various barrel treatments, e.g., specialty barrels, extended aging, multiple barrels, etc.

This would strike the right balance between focusing on traditionally excellent staples on the one hand with enough room for experimenting/fun on the other.

And, if necessary for marketing purposes, just pick one of items 3) through 5) each year and call it Prop.

 

Wait, who in the ever loving hell said that?!

No man, no. There have been way too many ridiculously divisive, if not downright bad, fruit stouts. Within GI, and without, but the BC series has had a few fruit doozies I could have done without.

 

I'm in favor of letting fungus ransack some barrels and bringing back Baudonia. That stuff was heavenly.

 

As someone who didn't even like Backyard Rye that much, I wholeheartedly agree

 

Fair enough. The recent fruit ones have been losers—Regal and the blueberry one I found particularly vile—but the early 2010s fruits—Cherry, original Bramble, and Backyard Ryes—survived rocky early reviews to develop into gems.

 

Cherry Rye and Backyard Rye were both great. If we're counting Midnight Orange as a "fruit" variant, then you have maybe the best adjuncted variant of the past 3-4 years being a fruit variant. Regal Rye is also a very nice beer if not an all timer.

There's been plenty of great variants with fruit over the years.

 

Vainglorious. Please and thanks

 

In 2020, GI submitted for 4 non-regular black labels:

Anniversary - Eagle Rare Barrels
Reserve - 2yr Old Forester 1910
Anniversary - 18mo Blanton's
Anniversary - 2yr Weller 12 (bottled as the Anniversary we know)

Not a bourbon guy, so I'm not sure if the Old Forester 1910 is the same as birthday. So at least one label GI submitted got bottled, maybe more.

GI's been know to try to throw us off these last few years, so I'm not counting on all of these new four labels to see the light of day on black Friday. That said, I hope I'm wrong. Been really digging the barrel forward beers.

 

Suffolk County has me feelin’ prettygoooodah

 

I had a Wild Turkey bottle tonight and it is drinking amazingly. Fresh I found it a bit too spirit forward, but tonight’s bottle was all chewy chocolate, vanilla, oak. A pleasure to drink.

 

Same. I liked MO, but for orange-flavored BCBS, I liked Cafe de Olla better. Prop 17, on the other hand, was one of my favorite beers of all time, period.

Also, you should give 2018 Bramble another shot. Just like 2018 Vanilla, it was not good fresh, but it really started to shine after about 1.5 to 2 years. I doubt it's as good as Backyard Rye, but it is very enjoyable now.

 

Drinking a Suffolk County right now, and I agree with whoever said in the other thread (maybe HawksBeerFan?) that it tastes like a good beer aged in barrels from an average whiskey. I really enjoyed it, and I'm glad I got two bottles, but it definitely didn't have the complexity that BCBS normally does.

 

1.) lots of fun tappings coming at you at both goose Chi locations starting tomorrow, but I can’t participate so whatever

2.) gonna finally pour prop 16-20 tasting for a couple friends on Saturday. Excited! Will also have a regular and wheatwine from 19 to provide a baseline. A little nervous that they’ll be worse together than separate, so will also have a bunch of crispy bois to palate cleanse in between. Maybe some fresh pips to finish since that’s the only thing that will register on the palate after all of that.

Seeking opinions - should I do the prop vertical in order? Or random / blinded? I think.... I think the latter, right?

 

They’re distinct enough that blind probably wouldn’t make much of a difference.

 

Saw the Fulton post on BCS flight for CCBW. Is Clybourn doing something as well?

And is there any kind of an actual CCBW happening this year? Haven’t seen much at all from breweries or the sites that used to compile events. Maybe just missed it.