I see why you'd say this, but I think their og saison is reliable. I'd agree, never pick up a random bottle of Fantome though.

There's a local very small place near me called Afterthought that just makes the best, best saisons. Side Project/HF/etc. level. I am amazed. Chicago people, seek it out.

I'm a Fantome fan, but reliable is about the last word I'd ever use to describe them, even their og saison.

BCBS fans,

Variant list this year sounds crazy/great:
https://www.gooseisland.com/blog/ann...ounty-variants

8 of them!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/vinepai...-ranked/%3famp

Apparently they’ll all be distributed nationally except for prop and reserve.

I imagine most of the special ones will be snapped up by people in line well before I wake up, but no idea what I’ll do if I find myself at a store with a bunch of these available.

Midnight orange prob the one that sounds most interesting to me.

I look forward to some of you on the coasts being able to walk-in casually on Friday and buy a case of vanilla/bramble while I will be < 200 miles away and will be lucky to get 2 or each!

I was actually lucky enough to already grab 2 bottles of Vanilla yesterday. A buddy sent me a tip that some shady liquor store downtown was selling early this year again.

it's quite fun to travel back in time 10+ years to the first few pages of this thread and see what beers people were talking about. my how tastes have changed.

and i think the first post in the thread still holds up.

WildDan below is close to my rankings of the Brouwerij Huyghe beers i've tried. i'd list them Noel, Tremens, Nocturnum, La Guillotine, Argentum, Red.

Noel is just amazingly (and dangerously) drinkable for a 10 ABV beer.

it's worth noting this ranking is based on having them on tap several times in Belgium. your experience out of the bottle in the States may be different (similar to having a pint of Guinness in Ireland compared to the US).

Does anyone have any experience with Hopsy or the Krups Sub Beer Dispenser system?

I take it that's a no?

Happy Thanksgiving eve, all. Cheers!

I'd love to, but can't do it again this year. Tampa Bay Beer Week (when Huna Day happens) is absolutely epic. all kinds of great beer releases all over the city. I'll be driving through 2 weeks after again this year and hope to pick up some of the leftovers again.

Black Friday went better than expected. Ended up at the store in Indy with the biggest allotment at 3:30 am which was earlier than I planned, but worth it. My brother wanted to come along for the line share so I was able to get 2 full allotments. Also picked up a few more vanillas throughout the day.

Tried vanilla (great, if a little bit hot still), bramble (also really good) and Midnight Orange (weird but still enjoyable) over the weekend so I'm happy with my haul.

Jesus, lol. I paid a small markup (not sure exactly how small because i have no idea what retail was supposed to be exactly?) to not deal with line standing. Double OK with this because I was in NY on Friday, so missed any Chicago insanity. I wound up with, I think:

4 prop
2 reserve
1 wheatwine
1 coffee barley
1 bramble
3 orange
3 vanilla
0 regular (for now)

My friend said he rolled into his local (downtown) jewel at 6pm on Friday and had his pick of anything other than prop and reserve. He only wanted regular and coffee, so grabbed 4 of each no line no wait and said there was plenty of everything else. Sick life.

Bode,

Do you trade those or drink them? That’s so much bourbon county! So many great BA stouts out there these days to choose from...

I didn’t bother even looking this year, it was raining and I just didn’t care enough. I just got some groceries and Whole Foods had regular for $11.99 so I grabbed a couple. They also had wheatwine for $14.99 but that didn’t sound too interesting to me. They received a few cases of all the variants. Looks like vanilla, bramble, and orange were $24.99, wheatwine and coffee barley wine were $14.99. Kinda glad I didn’t swing by over the weekend because then I prob would have gotten some of each. The only one I’m really interested in is the midnight orange, that one sounds great to me.

City beer store had a big Black Friday stout event instead of a bcbs release event this year. Pencil marks on the menu are not mine. Everything on the list was $5 for a 4oz pour, which I thought was a pretty cool way to do this event.


I tried all but the marzipan of the speedway stout variants. Coffee cake was especially great. The one in the Islay scotch barrel was weird.

Tried bottle logic fundamental observation for the first time. Very good, but almost too much vanilla and chocolate sweetness for me.

Also tried the modern times macadamia nut devil’s teeth and a couple of the Oskar blues. Didn’t get any macadamia nut in the modern times, but they were all tasty.

After that stopped by a bar (willows) that had had a bcbs event weds night. They only had the 2018 regular (which actually tasted a little thin compared to some of the ones we’d been drinking), but they had regular and barleywine from 2015/2016/2017 and also had regal rye from 2015, which I really love. Everything was $12/8oz, which seemed a good deal for the regal rye.

Holy balls at all that BCS. I managed to get at least one of every variant (I'm in Chicago so Prop and Reserve as well.) I opened a bramble last night and thought it was really fruit forward, but solid overall. It was a the kind of beer that after opening you wish you had someone else to share it with because the flavors are so bold. Of course that didn't stop me from finishing it on my own. I have another so I'm going to let that one rest for a while and see if it mellows out.

The wheatwine seems fairly easy to come by, and I've heard from several friends who've tried it that it's the dark horse of the series this year, so I'm going to crack mine open tonight and if it's as solid as I've heard, I'll pick up some more this week.

As an aside, I picked up a 4-pack of this year's Cafe Deth and it might be the best coffee stout I've ever had. Completely incredible flavor.

I didn't go looking for any BCBS this year, but still have a bunch from prior years. It's getting to the end of the semester here, which means that I'll probably starting hitting the cellar pretty hard starting in a few weeks. But I did just want to share something I saw today that would have blown my mind a few years ago:



No big deal, just 7 cases of CBS sitting at the local Whole Foods without a limit. I'm not sure that, say, 2015 me would find anything more surprising.

If we're talking hauls, I'm pretty excited about 2 I just got:





That bottle on the right has a super low fill, which I'm pretty irritated about. I stuck it right in the fridge and will open it this week.

Figured this may be the case since they released it 2 years in a row. I bought too much last year but was able to find someone to trade me 2 bottles of this years for 2 of mine from last year.

on another note, how have I never seen the abbreviation Fz before? Google tells me its not new and is fairly common.

Damn dude! I probably would have joined you if I wasn't able to go by the brewery and try everything on tap... I'm glad I didn't go, but it's the first year I didn't drive around in like, 6 years, so I did miss it just nostalgia-wise.

Nice! This is the real haul imo! I have 6 Gooikoorts in my etre box, pretty excited... that's an odd low fill tho - makes me nervous, hopefully it's a one off and not something weird with the way the lot was filled. I'd take it up with the vendor imo, seems very catchable.

Tilquin from a local shop? Can't find **** around here (Chicago). Got a couple of Mure (very k! and recommend), but all the other stuff missed or got snapped up by double secret lambic mules.

Finally was able to try the Tilquin, picked one up at a great beer store in Rochester, NY last week visiting family. Would love to try some of the varieties you have here.



Had to make do with the glassware. My brother is getting into beer he took me to a relatively new brewey Mortalis, they had some pretty good stuff. It’s about 20 minutes west of a new Other Half brewery they opened in the area.



Me and my brother tried a bunch of stuff.




Yeah sorry had to get a 30 rack of my favorite macro brew.

Gooikoorts bottle was from Belgiuminabox. It was kind of sticky, so I think it leaked in transit, rather than being a low fill from the brewery. I think it's the cost of doing business when you're having beer shipped overseas. Hopefully the remainder will still taste good. I'll probably open it Thursday or Friday.

Tilquin was from Belgianbeerbarn, which seems to have closed up shop. I haven't seen any Tilquin varieties around here (Columbus, OH), although the gueuze has been popping up once in a while. I generally prefer gueuze to fruited lambic, which makes me question why I keep buying all this fruited lambic. But then every once in a while I have something like De Cam Lambiek Special, and I'm blown away.

Beer nerds,

Random assortment of bcbs at target tonight.

I had passed up the wheatwine for $14.99 at Whole Foods yesterday, but after reading some of the glowing reviews figured I should give it a try when I saw them at random price craft beer target.

When scanned at checkout, no price in system. Sir, do you know how much this is? What’s my answer!?!!?!

Also saw this. Does not sound good!


Oh, and spider, CBS also still sitting on the shelf at Whole Foods here for that price.

It's funny how different shelfies are in different parts. Mass doesn't get many BCBS variants at all, so I would never see anything other then the regular on a shelf - but there's probably a half-dozen mostly generic shops within 10 miles of me that have Tilquin just chilling, included a bunch of the fruited variants.

Also props to the Genee 30 rack.... many many many of those consumed at 9.99 per in college.

Indy is finally starting to get a more regular distro of Tilquin, Cantillon and other good lambics. They still sell out quick and many stores only sell them to their beer club/email club type members.

did a quick search and didn't find anything about Hop Valley except my post below from 2015

the above mentioned Alpha Centauri is still good, but Citrus Mistress is pretty heavy in my current rotation. Alphadelic and Alpha Millennium are also worth trying.

https://www.hopvalleybrewing.com/beer/

Ok, this is weak. I opened up the low fill bottle tonight. As soon as I unscrewed the cage and started on the cork, a sliver of green glass fell off the lip. Great. Keep at the cork, which is STUCK, and I realize I'm bleeding from the spot where the glass broke off. Finally got the cork out with my multitool:



The cork came out with no audible pop at all. Not a good sign. I poured out a vigorous pour, and there's no carbonation:



Bleh. The taste isn't bad, and I can imagine a world where a version of this beer with carbonation is really good. But this isn't that version. I'm going to cap it and try the rest tomorrow, but I don't have any reason to think it's going to be better. This is a super big disappointment - I hope the other bottle I got is better.

On a brighter note, I was at Whole Foods tonight picking up some dinner with the kids. As I also do, I walked over to the beer area to see if there was anything new, and I see boxes of Goose Island BCBS behind the counter. Boom! Apparently they got their order late and they were just putting it out on display tonight. I assumed I wouldn't be getting any BCBS this year at all, let alone the variants, but I'm pretty happy:



I'm most excited about the coffee barleywine and the orange, but I've read a lot of good stuff about the wheatwine, which I guess makes me excited for all of it.

Pretty even-steven day overall.

Hard to find in Chicago but I went to Brussels this year and do fresh and amazing.

we can thank shelton brothers for being douchers on that one. They switched distributors a while ago and then found out that distributor carried INBev products so they pulled their lineup and have barely been in Chicago since