BCBS in Austin 2015

Relevant to my interests. Will be in Austin and not DFW this year.

Hope that's not an awfully bad thing.

 

I was in Austin last year, BCBS seemed to be around in a lot of places. Whole Foods, Spec's, and the bigger HEBs are your best bets to score more than 1 bottle.

 

Bangers will have an event with everything but Prop the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. It will be nice to try everything beforehand.

 

I haven't done the Austin BCBS hunt before, which are the bigger HEB? Does Central Market get much? Which Whole Foods are better? Do spots tend to get them on time? I know in Dallas they could sometimes be late.

 

The central market I went to last year only had it at 1 bottle limit. Most HEBs I saw had a 4 pack limit. The big Whole foods on Lamar is probably the best location, I believe they usually have it pretty early in the morning also. Several HEBs in Austin have Twitter accounts just for their beer department, go follow those as they will likely get BCBS and then post when it's available. Deliveries were spread out over the day it seemed, but we managed to get a case and a half between 2 people by noon and called it a day.

 

Any spots in particular to hunt for variants? Any of the Twin Liquors worth going to?

 

I think the whole foods on Lamar may have had variants in the past, the Austin people would know better than me. Of course what they do know may be a guarded secret. I was just relaying my experiences from last year, which I only found regular and barleywine. I heard most of the variants for Spec's are going to the flagship store in Houston. The one Twin Liquors I went to last year the "beer guy" didn't even know what BCBS was.

 

Well I saw a map showing that Austin was getting an extra half pallet of Coffee, Rare, and Regal on top of the normal allotment, so we're definitely getting some. Some of the twitter accounts you pointed me toward were helpful, thank you.

 

Whole Foods Domain was planning to do a Black Friday BCBS/Cellar release. I haven't seen any information about it recently though.

 

According to the Goose Island Austin Twitter, only bcbs and rare got approved by the abc in time for Black Friday. All the other variants are delayed until the approval. How does this even happen?

 

BCBS Coffee is label approved but apparently just didn't make it in time...another fail

 

Coffee was late last year. The year before, BW came really late, like many months, I think. It's par for the course.

 

2013 Barleywine came in June 2014 if I recall. 2013 Coffee and Backyard came in February.

 

So what all will be avail at mueller? Rare? Regal? Not waiting in line for standard bourbon county because I know it will be everywhere

 

Is the label approval debacle state wide, or specific to Austin? Sorry - I'm not up on how label approval works.

Poster above says Coffee was late last year, but it definitely wasn't late in Dallas. I bought Coffee on black Friday.

Anyway, if this is limited to Austin, I'm going to be pretty bummed. I'll be there, potentially miss it due to label issues, then would have missed the boat in Dallas assuming it is released on time on Black Friday.

 

Just Rare and Regular BCBS. Unless you want Rare, no reason to go.

 

I spoke to HEB Mueller they will have Rare and Regular.

 

Label approval issues would be state wide.

Apparently, only BCBS and Rare will be around on Black Friday (all through TX is my understanding). I still haven't seen label approvals for those two, but they claim to have them.

Coffee will be late due to GI issues and not labels.