Bourbon County 2017

Was it infected? Sounded that way a bit? If so, color me scared.

 

That’s wild! Are they gonna dump it? Or adjunct the hell out of it?

I mean, they should probably just let us drink it for free at the tap room...

 

Interesting.

Something of note completely unrelated to the Reserve BW post:

In the original BCBS release thread (I think in News and Releases?) there was a bit of discussion as a result of one of the Chicago Tribune articles noting that "since 1992" was removed from the label - insinuating it had to do with his own reporting (as I recall). It's interesting to note that this is still emblazoned into the glass on the bottle.

 

Yeah the origin story of BCBS is crazy. Josh Noel (the guy who wrote the article you're referring to) talked about it at some length during the most recent Beer Temple Insider's Roundtable podcast. Basically, through people he talked to (including the assistant brewer at Goose at the time BCBS was first brewed/released) he found the actual first release of BCBS was like 1994 or 1995 (he said the year, I can't remember off the top of my head).

Goes into these meetings he found out about between Hall and the dude from Jim Beam where they agreed to collaborate on it. Sounded like the 1992 thing was made up out of thin air. Very interesting story.

 

Perhaps a dumb question, but does anybody know if Wal-Mart typically receives BCBS? They do have some GI but I've never seen Sofie there.

 

They don't where I am, but... that doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't where you're at. It'll be 100% up to the distributor.

 

LOL. From June 12th:

"Many years ago we lost track of some Bourbon County Brand Barleywine barrels in a dark corner of our Barrel House. When we finally found them, we discovered that they had been lost for about two years . . . and the beer inside was fantastic. We knew we had to release an extra age Barleywine, but we needed to wait for the right barrels. On that note, we put our Barleywine into the 35 year Heaven Hill barrels you might remember from a couple years ago. It’s been in there since – a full 20 months – and it is outstanding."

 

It’s very possible that it was outstanding, but in the time since, it has taken a turn, or a few barrels were great, and once blended, it became not so great.

Or it was bs from the start, but I doubt it. They’re not gonna hope a beer gets better with age.

 

Come on, this is no place for that kind of talk. We need pitchforks and torches!!!

 

You'd think since they're pasteurizing that infection would not be a problem. In that case it either stopped tasting like it did originally, or they want to keep it all to themselves.

 

Are they still pasteurizing, or was that just a "we're making damn sure '16 is not a '15"?

 

Pasteurizing locks the flavor. It's not going to un-infect the beer. If it tasted off when they pulled the pre-bottling sample, it was always going to taste off.

They're still pasteurizing.

 

You'd think there would be a huge market for barrel management software/barcodes given the rates people are losing barrels and finding them later...

 

Reading above it sure sounded like it tasted great before bottling. Did you miss that post, or else what am I missing that we're taking two steps back here?

 

What does "before bottling" even mean? Bourbon County generally hits the bottling line....like, now.

It can taste good 2 months ago and not taste good today.

And, of course, that's all operating on the assumption the stuff was even infected. Maybe it took on some weird wood char flavor. Who knows.

 

Seems like a huge lost opportunity for them, for something that took so long to age, to taste the Reserve BW and realize it tastes "outstanding," to know it would be releasing in a few months, and then simply wait to bottle and pasteurize it until just now. Especially considering recent history.

Oh well, it's their money and time, not mine.

 

Fifteen years ago we were told RFID tags were the future of warehousing and, ultimately, all logistics. Still waiting....

 

In less than 5 months, it goes from 'outstanding' to we tried it again and we're not releasing it? I think you have the reason here. '(I)t doesn't taste like what we wanted it to'? Yeah, because they've now determined it tastes too outstanding for us lowly peons.

Those 'effn bastards. We'll show they them. Time to break out the tiki torches, storm GI and demand they release it on BF. Who's up for Saturday after the More release? Now if we can just get some help from all the people coming in from out of state for BF, our numbers would grow from thousands to millions.