Bourbon County 2019 NYC

I don’t necessarily disagree with you, I work for a brewery most people (even on this site) haven’t heard of, but considering what this thread is about, it’s a strange place for your post.

 

Broadway Dive

 

Thanks so much! My aunt lives right around the corner, I’m have to swing by.

 

Yep, agreed. Bramble (and backwoods the year before) were not worth the price or the effort to get. I liked Orange and Vanilla quite a bit and still have a few bottles of each, but I've also never had the legendary '14 vanilla rye for comparison.

 

A lot of good reviews coming out regarding this year's base and variants (relative to the previous two years), so I have some hope. In the end I will probably just stock up on the base like normal.

 

No problem. I doubt the recent cold weather caused them to fly off the shelves since it's already been a year of them sitting well-stocked. You can also typically find at least a base and a variant at the newly "organic" grocery stores in gentrifying neighborhoods. So around there you have Best Market and the Foodtowns in Harlem that get the stuff and don't know what to do with it. I remember KeyFood on 125 had a Prop sitting there as a freaking shelfie next to Coronas for over a year. I posted about it in one of these threads and it was gone that day. I just couldn't bring myself to buying a $100 bottle of beer from someone making a lot less and working a lot harder than I do.

 

The ‘14 VR really was legendary. Funny too that the price point for that bottle, which was 24 oz, was $24. Ah how times have changed.

 

I know my post was uniquely unhelpful to those who only care about finding some BCBS this year, but I believe there should still be space to criticize Goose Island's corporate overlord anytime one of their products is mentioned here. They've "earned" it through their string of misdeeds.

Considering what this site is about, I think that's just what good beer advocacy looks like. It's stranger for me whenever no one seems to care about AB InBev's pernicious influence in the industry and remains silent and/or indifferent about it, but since I have no interest in stirring up the pot or co-opting this page I'll leave it at that.

 

Vanilla Rye is probably the only beer I wanted to try but never got too

 

I know. The maybe $100 I spend on Bourbon County each year trumps the tens of thousands of dollars I’ve spent on independently-made beer in that same time span. I’m putting a serious dent into Independent beer, ain’t I?

Not that it matters, but I think any person who has set an account up on this site knows who makes this beer and knows exactly what they stand for. Pay-to-play, removal of competing beer from the same shelves, removal of craft taps from bars, systematically buying up breweries around the country, collusion...we get it.

If you want to start a thread attacking people who dare spend their money on what they want to spend it on, by all means, please do.

By the way, what device do you use to post here? Where do you shop? Where does your produce come from? Who does your banking? Why stop at beer?

 

American breweries selling out is the problem. Can't be mad at ab inbev for purchasing breweries that are willing to sell. I see no loyalty when it comes to craft beer

 

True but that’s not the only thing AB is doing. They have also been buying rights to hops for exclusive use.

 

Did not know this. But I figure they're an abundance of hops out there. They can buy all the hops they like but it doesn't mean they know how to utilize them. I've never been blown away by anything ab inbev has put out besides bourbon county. Most of their portfolio is mediocre at best. I will always choose a local IPA over any nonsense they brew

 

Like I said earlier, most of us know what lengths they go to to keep their stock up and their bosses happy. The veil isn’t exactly being pulled from over our eyes here.

 

I thought the 2018 vanilla was solid but not at all in the same class as the VR bombers.

 

Not to continue the derailing. And to be totally transparent I have bought a handful of BCBS since the acquisition, so belong firmly in the hypocrite bucket for sure. I may buy one or two this year.

But it is funny how at the time of the acquisition, literally 95% of people on here were like “never buying that shite again”

 

I highly recommend that you read barrel aged stout and selling out by Josh Noel. The author is a writer for the Chicago Tribute and has covered the BCBS release yearly for a decade. He was not invited for this year's release, if that gives any indication of what you'd expect from the book.

It's not a about craft brewers just using alternative hops because big beer is taking up the supply. It's a matter of big beer trying to actively drive craft out of business by cutting off supply and also distribution lines. They threaten distributors to pull Budweiser unless they stop dealing with craft. That's a death knell unless you comply.

BCBS is probably the best example of "I'll never support big beer except in this one case". I'm guilty of this myself.

 

Yeah, same here. I mean it's the currency used on this site to discuss trade values since we can't use dollar amounts. I'd also love to try Good Morning.

 

I had vanilla rye. Very good. But give me BCBCS any day. That beer has become mythologized

 

Hypocrite here too, I definitely don’t like the business practices of AB InBev, but love Bourbon County.