Goose Island Announces 2023 BCBS Lineup

i have a feeling Barleywine probably was the culprit that started the whole 2015 debacle. by then & was predicted here, barrel integrity/ sourcing was all over the place. it had been exclusively Heaven Hill & more specifically almost certainly were barrels that were bottled as Elijah Craig.

that barleywine, "1,2,3" process, (reuse of barrels that held the prior year's release of BCBS), was dangerous given the supply of barrels available after 2014.

 

Well they don't have to make that barleywine every year. I'm just surprised they don't have a BA barleywine in the lineup as a standard offering

 

"That" was their standard, annual BA barleywine. maybe you mean they should have quit 3rd usage of the barrels?

i'm not quite clear what you meant when you said : "that" & "standard offering".

 

I just want barleywine every year. idgaf how they make it

 

I mean that I can see how the third use barrels are a risk that aren't worth it, but the vast majority of BA barleywine are simply aged in a freshly emptied spirit barrel.

Sure, there would always be some people lamenting that it's not that barleywine from pre 2015. But I think most of the market would just be happy to have a yearly barleywine release from a well respected barrel program

 

They all sound decent. That means we won’t see anything but regular here.

 

Where in NY are you located?

 

Buffalo area. Past few years we’ve gotten some of the variants, but woefully small volume. Regular becomes a shelf turd now.

 

Just noticed the early reviews are in on some of this year's lineup, and, wow, not good. I was disappointed with the 2022 release, but at least that appeared to be a minority opinion. The ratings on this year's seem to have fallen off a cliff. What happened to this beer?

 

I am not sure I trust the early reviews, for a few reasons: (1) the people that get early access are likely those that have been drinking BCBS for 10-15 years or longer, and nostalgia can really warp memory of what past years were like; (2) those same people now have access to the widest array of barrel-aged and/or adjunct imperial stouts in decades (or ever), and a top-of-the-line BCBS probably isn't as far above everything else as it was 10+ years ago when there was almost nothing comparable on the market, and (3) the strength of BCBS has always been in the base beer, not the adjuncts (some have been great, but most have just been "eh"), and the base beer is typically ignored in the initial craze to find, taste, and review the variants.

I could be wrong - maybe it's crap this year. I feel like there's one less variant than there should be, so maybe something went very wrong with their process this year, and one was so messed up it was unsalvageable. We'll see in a few weeks, assuming I can find any.

 

I rarely trust any review of a beer made by a brewery that’s owned by a larger company. Unless it’s done blind, it’s generally worthless.

 

2022 regular was fucking awesome and is pretty poorly reviewed. I've felt like some of the variants weren't worth 2x the cost of reg, but I generally snag a regular and a variant or two every year and have yet to feel like one was a legit miss.

 

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that and recognize that taste is subjective. I thought the lackluster reviews were entirely appropriate and considered the 2022 vintage to be the weakest I've had over the last decade.

 

Have a preorder down for 2 regular and 1 of each variant except Proprietors. Ready to give 'em a go. Don't really care much about Untappd reviews; would much rather let my own palate decide.

 

My body is ready

 

What’s the MSRP on these guys?

 

Going to make an effort this year to get some of these. It will require my tired ass getting up really early & leaving the state

 

It's a spiritual experience.

 

If there is an MSRP, it's meaningless. The OG sells for $8 to $20. The variants vary from $15 to $60 depending on the variant. There are outliers, both directions.

 

SRP for these beers is likely more or less the following, which seems to align with last year's tiers for the most part. Retail stores are going to be all over the place, however, as noted above. But if you see completely unreasonable prices relative to the below, I'd move on to another store if it were me.

Eagle Rare 2 Year Reserve: ~$40
Angel's Envy 2 Year Cask Finish: ~$40
Proprietor's: ~$30
Bananas Foster: ~$24
Backyard: ~$24
Regular: ~$14