is velvet merkin incredible? I saw it at the store tonight while stocking up on various big stouts and such for after dinner tomorrow, but it was like $16 for a 10 oz bottle.

I went to a Bourbon County event last night at Stoddards in Boston. I had (all on draft, 10 oz pours I think)

- Vanilla Rye
- Northwoods
- 2013 regular

they served them all too cold, which was too bad. I like my BCS warmed up pretty significantly

The Vanilla Rye certainly tastes way different than it did upon release. So much less Vanilla. Still a great beer, but not the GOAT I though it tasted like back then. The Northwoods was interesting. I got lots of both Blueberry and Almond, 2 flavors I like a lot. I far preferred this over Regal Rye.

as far as shopping goes, I'll do some rounds tomorrow but won't kill myself. if I thought there was a chance I could get a good amount of coffee I would look a lot more.

Kc: It’s v good, but I wouldn’t pay over $1/oz for it.

Kbz: 10oz pours!

Kbz,

I always get a side beer and let my stouts warm up.

Yeah saw that stoddards thing on insta. Pretty sick.

I bought a bunch of BA clown shoes stuff yesterday. And I have a 2016 bcbs. We'll see what's for dessert tonight.

Had a bourbon county coffee 16’ after dinner tonight. It’s still so good.

I’ll make my rounds tomorrow and hope to come up with a few bottles of Bcs and maybe some of the variants.

Bcs fans,

Arrived at city beer store around opening just after 9. 60-70 people in line. Guys ~10th in line said they showed up at 6.

CBS got two cases of reserve.

Full allocation was:
2 cases regular
1 case barleywine
6 bottles northwoods
4 bottles coffee
1 bottle reserve

Crossing my fingers they still have coffee left when I get in.

Edit: So tilted. About 10 people ahead of me, they run out of coffee. So annoying with that large allocation. Regular, barleywine, and coffee all sold for $15, northwoods and reserve for $24.

The place in santa rosa where I got BCBS last year was out this morning (of regular) 90 minutes after opening. What kind of savage planet do we live on??

ED, was that $15 per 16oz bottle?

Goofy:
Yeah, well, 16.9 oz...

Still annoyed they made the allocation so big they ran out of coffee, but I guess I’d be similarly annoyed if I got in line at 7 and could only buy 2 bottles of coffee. Heard from a friend you can still walk in and get two cases of regular and a case of barleywine. I got 6 regular, 4 northwoods, 2 barleywine. There was a wait for the bar side, so I didn’t wait to taste the coffee, but CBS, willows, and a few other bars have the whole lineup on draft so I’ll give it a try this weekend.

Bcs experts:
I have the following now:
2014 1x 12oz bottle each regular, barleywine, coffee.
2015 2x 16.9 each regular, barleywine
2016 2x 16.9 each regular, barleywine
2017 regular, barleywine, northwoods

Gonna have some people over and open five bottles. The 3 from this year, and which two others? Leaning 2016 and 2015 regular.

Safeway came through! They had 3 cases sitting out at noon, $11 per bottle club price.

goofy,

Great, I could have had 2 extra bottles for the same price! Not surprised - the last couple years, the Safeway by me has had regular bottles sitting out for a couple of days.

my BCS hunting story:

went into one local store. They had regular and barleywine sitting there, I don't like the barleywine so I just picked up a few bottles of regular for $13

then I went to another place, asked if they had any Bourbon County, and he pointed me to shelf, where I saw a bunch of 2016 still sitting there

then I went home

Holy cow - this was really the per person allocation??? I thought you typo'd something. Was everyone buying the full allocation?

Isn't all 2015 barleywine and some 2015 regular infected? I would plan on opening those, but then quickly dumping them when you realize they taste like garbage.

My BCBS chase this year: I'm in Maryland at the in-laws house and stopped quickly at 2 places nearby. Neither of them had it. One said that people were waiting in line when the store opened at 9. So I ordered a bunch online. Was only able to get regular, but that's about what i expected. I look forward to experimenting with coconut and coffee beans with a french press.

Spider,

Yep, that was per person allocation. Only saw a couple of people leaving with 3 cases or more, but lots were buying 2 total cases.

I dunno about the 2015 barleywine (and that’s the style I care least for anyway), but none of the 2015 bottles I had were from the recall dates. I’ve had a few bottles of it and they’ve all tasted great.

Diablo, I thought that was what the whole store got, lol. That's incredible.

I ended up with 6 bottles of BCBS coffee today. There liquor store nearest me isn't one of the major ones and still had coffee at 4 bottles per person at 2:30 this afternoon. Should I go back and try to get 4 more knowing the same guys will be working?

I also decided to get a 4 pack of each of Prairie: Christmas, Noir, Vanilla Noir, Coffee Noir, and Bourbon Paradise (somehow they were out of regular bomb which they stock normally) and plan to do some kind of tasting with all 6 of these at some point in the next 2 months.

You should get all the coffee you can buy. The reason I say that is because this year they've returned to the coffee bean that they used in the original 2010 version, which I thought at the time was the best beer I had ever had, and might still fit that description. I've had a couple of the coffee versions since then, and they definitely weren't as good (to me, obviously). If you find yourself regretting it after the fact, I will be happy to take any extra bottles off your hands.

I think i read all of nyc got 20 cases of northwoods bottles. That allocation is insane...

I thought BCS allocation per store was based on how much ab inbev you sold. Is that just kind of true/not true or is that SF store selling an absurd amount of abi compared to almost anywhere else?

Fed,


That’s a small craft beer store/bar, no way they can do any kind of volume compared to bigger liquor and grocery stores. However, they were one of the first (if not the first) exclusively craft beer focused retail shops in SF over 10 years ago, and have great relationships with tons of great craft brewers.

None of my local stores ended up getting any bourbon county due to some distributor snafu. Apparently they are getting it on Tuesday/Wednesday. I had my parents get some from the store by them.

Whats it cost per bottle around the country? I paid $20 but that place is well known for gouging.

Was stunned to see bottles of regular at Costco in Portland. $8.89 each.

I'll be in manhattan near times square for 5 nights and in brooklyn at hotel indigo (near fulton and flatbush streets) for three nights.
I reviewed the recent posts on NYC in the thread and got all the suggestions mapped for craft beer bars in manhattan but need brewery recommendations for both manhattan and brooklyn and craft beer bars in brooklyn.
thanks!

El D,
Next year go earlier!

Here was my haul. Decided not to chase further and just enjoyed some drafts and pours of VR instead. Can’t really explain how rare the opportunity to buy VR was. Got pretty lucky.

Downtown,

!!!!

I have 9 bottles of the coffee now (drank 1 tonight which was fantastic). I’m going to try to get 4 more and have my gf buy 4 as well tomorrow if the liquor store still has some. It’s my local store but they don’t advertise and are not very picked over as I got a 4 bottle allocation both today and yesterday