Goose Island won me back

Sorry man

 

No need to feel sorry. I can also regularly find solace with Victory, Troeg's, Stoudts, Sly Fox, Neshaminy Creek, Iron Hill, Dogfish Head, Evolution, Monk's Cafe and several others. Also it doesn't hurt that Philly has one of the best selections of imported Belgian beers in the US and some places that regularly offer German beers on keg. I survive.

 

What do you mean they changed the size of their bombers? I thought a bomber was 22 oz across the board.

 

If I'm not mistaken, PA is second only to IL in terms of sheer distribution footprint. Also, having only had Troeg's in NC (Nugget Nectar is awesome), I'm jealous of you guys there.

 

I think he means that GI has been releasing the "sisters" in wombers (wine bombers or 750mL)

 

FYI, there is some Brett involved in that they age some Sofie in ex-wine barrels with some Brett (there is a brewery tweet about that in a post earlier in the thread). That barrel aged Sofie is then mixed with regular unaged Sofie. IIRC the aged part is about 10% of the blend, but of course over a long enough period of time the bottled Sofie will begin to show some Brett flavor characteristics . But so far as I can tell it takes over a year to become noticeable. (I'll have more information in a couple of years as I have 4 of the 2015 maturing in the basement, two for next year and two for the following year.)

 

Tom, are the details of the blending documented anywhere? I looked on the Goose Island website but came up empty on blending details.

All that I could find was: "Our sparkling Belgian Style Farmhouse Ale is wine barrel-aged with an abundance of hand-zested orange peel."

No mention of blending or percentages.

Cheers!

 

Yeah, they are/were, but I can't recall the source at the moment. If "lightning strikes" I'll let you know.

 

Well two claims of 20% - 80% blending (not 10%) are the description on this site and on Untapped. The listing here was created by "BeerAdvocate" so that may be where I saw it

Those two listings are consistent with:

http://tempestinatankard.com/2014/02/13/time-well-spent-a-flight-of-goose-islandut thers-sofie/

but there is always the possibiity of an echo chamber effect.

@RobH