New York Bottle shops

If you want to ensure you get bottles of whatever becomes available in NYC, standing in line at Top Hops on Black Friday is really the only sure bet. I haven't been tracking all of the speculation, but after the debacle last year (when WAY more people showed up than anticipated), I think they are going to be very clear with those in line as to what you'll be able to get based on where you are in line. That said, if you get there early enough and make it to the front, you'll get the full allotment.

Other than that, regular BCS shouldn't be TOO difficult to find (though, because of an increase distribution footprint, 2014 was significantly more difficult than 2013). Any other variants are going to be a crapshoot, and they will disappear very quickly, unless pricing for the new packaging is just off the chain high.

 

I saw regular and barleywine on shelves for MONTHS afterwards in some places in Manhattan (West Side Market at 14th and 7th and Carmine Street Beers, to name a few), so unless they significantly cut production or distro to NYC, you should be able to at least get those. Coffee and vanilla were totally different stories, though.

 

Yeah, if you want the hyper-limited variants like the Rye and the Rare (if Rare even makes it to NYC, who knows), I'd make sure I was at Top Hops. Early. Bring hand warmers.

 

Top Hops, Carmine, Clinton Gourmet, City Swiggers, Brooklyn Harvest, and a bunch of others will probably have this. The best thing about NYC is that a lot of distribution seems to work on "you buy x many cases of our regular beer, you get y much of our specialty beer" and I think you'll see bottles across the city.

I went out a couple days after black friday and found 4-6 bottles of bourbon county coffee and like berto said, bcbbw was available pretty much up through March.