What is your favorite Bourbon County?

so I've never had bramble and rare... am excited to be able to taste vanilla likely next month

currently, I'd list the one's I've had in the following order:
1) cherry rye = like black forest cake in a bottle!
2) regular BCBS
3) coffee - I normally love coffee stouts, but the bourbon basically overwhelmed the coffee IMO

Hoping that vanilla will be my new #2 (I pray it doesn't exceed cherry rye, because I know I'll never get another bottle!)

 

It seems that among people who have had all of the bottled variants, Vanilla and Rare are far and away the favorites. I base this not on this thread, but all cumulative threads over the last few years, plus some personal conversations. Never had or saw Vanilla, which is a big regret of mine. I had multiple opportunities to have Rare at about $42.99 a bottle and I honestly do not regret ignoring it. That was just too much. I never even tried to get Bramble because I thought there was no way in hell they could have added enough fruit to overcome the whiskey/wood flavors at release but apparently I was mistaken.....guess I regret that too.

Didn't try to get Cherry Rye, I just happened upon it in D.C. Loved it; prefer it to the regular, fresh and up to two years. Would I buy it again though? Not for $25, no. Wouldn't mind it on tap though, or splitting a bottle two ways.

I've never understood why people continue to hype Coffee. It got a lot of love from people in 2010 because people reached the (in my opinion, nonsensical) consensus that the coffee made it smoother. In reality, few people had tried 2009 BCBS and 2010 BCBS wasn't out yet, so they didn't know the smoothness was from extra barrel aging and better blending (that is, it was because of Laffler). I just don't think it's better or even dramatically different from fresh BCBS, and now it's twice as expensive, so it's definitely not worth it.

If your favorite beer haven was selling Coffee for the same price as last year, congratulations, they screwed up. It's now supposed to clock in at around the same price as a four-pack of the standard, so that's somewhere in the vicinity of $21.99 to $24.99. Expect to pay that next time.


I am eagerly hoping that Coconut Rye gets to see it to the bottling line. The Neapolitan one sounded great too, wouldn't mind seeing that, but I don't think they've made it in years. Honestly, I thought Cherry Rye was like a Neapolitan with cherries instead of strawberries. Seeing them actually add chocolate to a beer which already has chocolate and vanilla flavors regardless would be insane.

I wonder if they could avoid the slime gunk-ing issue they had with Vanilla by splitting them or shaving them before adding them to the barrel. I know B.Nektar does that with their Vanilla Cinnamon mead and they don't seem to have any complaints about equipment getting clogged.

 

i've had '08-'12 and vanilla and coffee. of those '08 was the best. my first '08 i had blew me away

 

Vanilla with '08 a close second.

 

Bramble. Bring on the haters.

 

2012 BCBS. Only one I've tried.

 

Cherry Rye, and then everything else. Rare was unique in that it had a TON of Bourbon character, but it was almost too much.

Regular BCBS is the best deal in beer history now, especially with the increased distro.

Haven't had Bramble or Vanilla yet.

 

Of the ones I've had...

1. Coffee
2. Regular
3.
4.
5.
6. Cherry

I haven't had Rare, Bramble, or Vanilla but I disliked Cherry Rye so much I don't see how I won't enjoy those three more.

 

Having had all the variants here's how I'd rank 'em

1. Rare
2. Coffee
3. Bramble Rye
4. Vanilla
5. BCBS
6. Cherry Rye

you really can't go wrong with any of them, they're all amazing imo

 

Lincoln County is my favorite bourbon county...wait....did I misunderstand the question?

 

We did a tasting of all the variants a couple of months ago or so. They were all great. Everyone had different favorites on the night. I liked the Bramble the best that night but another might have been my favorite another day. You really can't go wrong with any of them. Any day I get to drink a variant or a regular version is a damn good day - Cheers!

 

The only one I've not had is Rare. Of the rest, Bramble takes it for me (the bottle was opened about 2 months ago).

 

Cherry Rye...perfection for me

 

:*( I've only had regular, but it was heaven.

 

Still haven't acquired Bramble and Rare. That being said, I'm going with Vanilla first followed by the original with age on it, Coffee was decent. Cherry tasted like extract IMO.

 

I had Raspberry BCBS at Dark Lord Day a couple years back. That was amazing!

 

2009 bomber size BCBS.

 

I like the one aged in bourbon barrels.

 

Rare at the time it was sold was the best variant, and in fact best stout, I ever tried. None has topped it since.

 

Mr Brett Porter himself told me Bramble is his personal favorite variant, it's funny to see how it was mostly not well received. And It's the one I have yet to try! Cherry rye might be my favorite, rare and vanilla and coffee all being stellar and none of them being at the bottom of my list. I can't really drink plain bcbs fresh though, takes about 8 months after release for me to be able to really enjoy it.