Prop '15: A Christmas Miracle!

What started out as one of the most exciting Bourbon County Brand Stout variants, the annual Proprietor's Chicago-only adjuncted release (which featured coconut in 2013 and coconut water plus cassia bark [cinnamon] in 2014) went a bit awry in 2015 when the winning combo featured maple, toasted pecans and Guajillo peppers. ( (When I say "winning" combo I'm referring to the competition among Goose Island employees that is done each year to determine what adjuncts to use. Also, the 2015 release was the first not to be aged in rye whiskey barrels. I miss rye barreled Prop! Also, I miss coconut in Prop. 'cuz I'm a coconut slut!)

From the get-go Prop '15 was a disappointment to me. I was fortunate enough to try it at Rare Day, a 2015 Goose Island event, and again at the Black Friday 2015 Clybourn brewpub tasting of the full lineup. On both occasions I found it to be entirely too sweet for my liking, though each of the adjuncts popped on my palate.

Goose Island brewers attend the Clybourn event and take questions from attendees, and that year I asked whether they meant for Prop to be so over the top with the sweetness. I was told yes, but that they expected it to mellow with time. (Your mileage may vary when it comes to aging adjuncted stouts. I try not to do so for more than a year or so but make an exception with Bourbon County, as they generally develop nicely for several years.)

My pour of Prop '15 at the 2015 Black Friday Clybourn tasting

Things began to get a bit wobbly for the 2015 Bourbon County lineup scarcely a month after its Black Friday release (though bottling typically begins in late summer). Shortly after Christmas people began to claim that bottles of both Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout and Bourbon County Barleywine tasted sour. As a huge fan of the coffee version I had hustled to acquire nine bottles of it. I refrigerated all of them and began to play "coffee roulette" on 07 January 2016. And...blam! Right off the bat I got a bad one. Like, really bad. Super sour. Down the drain with it! I then opened a second one that was a bit off but drinkable.

The very next day, Goose Island announced a recall/refund for these two variants. Over the next several weeks I discovered that four of my nine Coffee bottles had gone bad; after that I called in for my refund. (All told, refund checks were cut for some 40,000 bottles of Coffee and Barleywine.)

By early April it was happening again. Rumors ran rampant in the craft beer community that Prop was also showing off flavors. Some friends and I tested two bottles on 30 April. Both were problematic. This...was not good. In mid-July, all Prop '15 and select dates of regular Bourbon County Stout were recalled. A lactic acid, lactobacillus acetotolerans, was found to be the culprit.

How would Goose Island avoid this in the future? Flash pasteurization! And so, starting with the 2016 lineup, all Bourbon County beers are briefly heated to a crazy high temp to prevent microbial spoilage.

And that was that.

Until last night, when my beer bestie jokingly pulled out a Prop '15 at a party where we had already drank through the entire 2018 Bourbon County lineup. We popped it after drinking all of the new bottles.

I smelled the bottle before any was poured. Nothing offputting like I expected.

We poured a few ounces each. Sniffed again. Our nose hairs did not burst into flames.

We worked up the courage to drink it. And...Miracle Prop!

December 15, 2018 -- the miracle bottle of Prop '15!

I won't claim it was super-delicious. It was still on the sweet side, but not horribly so. There was no trace of the pecans. A bit of pepper heat presented itself.

I'm not a microbiologist. I have no idea how this bottle emerged unscathed. It was refrigerated for most but not all of its lifespan, which may have helped. Maybe we got lucky. Maybe all it takes is a single teensy bit of lactobacillus acetotolerans to propagate and kill a bottle of beer and somehow this bottle had zero bits.

Or maybe...just maybe...it was a Christmas Miracle!

In any case, it was a happy happening for us all, an amusing capper to a very enjoyable night.

NYE Beer-Centric Options in Chicagoland

Our old city friends host a New Year's Eve party every year so I never even really consider all of the outstanding craft beer events that are held that night. But if you're looking for something, the always-reliable Mark McDermott has a nice roundup of NYE events for your consideration....

Deth!

I'm very excited to attend this can release tomorrow!

And this evening I'll be trying at least one of them at a Revolution event at a bar.

Revolution Brewing's barrel-aged beers really are stealing some of Goose Island's thunder, at least here in Chicagoland.

Suds Goes Downstate: Dosvidanya Day and 'lil Beaver

Bloomington, Illinois's Destihl Brewing Company is probably a little bit under the radar. AFAIK they started as a sours-focused brewery before diversifying the portfolio to appeal to the masses that flock to IPAs and stouts. (Though they still can a lot of sours.)

Like a lot of breweries, as the calendar turns toward winters Destihl releases its barrel-aged stout, the award-winning Dosvidanya. As smart marketers do, the brewery has created an event around this annual release, Dosvidanya Day. Attendees receive an allocation of various iterations of the beer (four bottles total, at least for the past two years), a few complimentary draft pours of exclusive beers, a cash bar that includes pours of the bottled beers and the opportunity to buy extra bottles. Plus live music, food from the kitchen, exclusive merch and some random surprises.

Bloomington is fairly accessible via I-55, and for folk in Chicago's western suburbs like me it's an easy two-hour drive. (And the brewery itself is just off of the expressway, at the beginning of the burgeoning Bloomington-Normal commercial strip. Seriously, this place-- home of Illinois State University -- has come a long way since I started college at a different Illinois land-grant institution 30 years ago.) It rained for the first hour, then lightened up. The day was grey but the temperatures were unseasonably warm, peaking in the mid-50s that afternoon.

I arrived about a half-hour before opening and joined the shortish line. The couple behind me were sporting caps from Elgin, Illinois's, Plank Road Tap Room, a place I've heard good things about but haven't yet been to. So I chatted them up and naturally we had a beer bud in common. Easily half the crowd was from the Chicago area, at least in part because attending Dosvidanya Day means you get access to some bottles that won't be distributed.

Doors opened promptly at 11 and we milled inside. To minimize any worry I got my bottles almost immediately and ran them out to my car. The standard allotment was one bourbon barrel aged bottle, one rye barrel aged and two bourbon barrel aged with coconut. They also had some vintage bottles for sale, so I picked up a few of last year's vanilla variant and some extra coconut bottles. (Both of my regular readers will recall that I kind of love coconut stouts.) Like Bottle Logic and Goose Island, among others, Destihl packages its BA stouts in 500ml/16.9-ounce bottles -- which some say is a bit much for solo drinking and too little for sharing with more than one other person. I personally kind of like the size myself.

Bottles secured, it was time to enjoy the day a bit. The festival is held in the brewery itself, among the brewhouse, fermenters, bottling line, etc. Attendees get a few free pours of a few beers exclusive to the event (I used all of mine on the BA tiramisu stout because #PastryIsLife) along with several cash bars offering multiple versions of the Dosvidanya that gets bottled.

Free packages of Beer Nuts were plentiful, as were sample pours of cold press coffee made from barrel-aged beans. (You bet I bought a 12-ounce bag; BA coffee beans make the kitchen smell like a rickhouse, which is a jolly good thing.) The brewery tap house and kitchen were also available.

Coffee! Giver of life, killer of sleeps, producer of poops....

Something else cool? All tips received during the event were donated to Home Sweet Home Ministries. Employees stepping up!

I hung with a few friends who had traveled separately and chatted away while sipping my pours for an hour or so, whiling away the time before Lil Beaver Brewing opened. We bailed on the event a few hours in to see if the local liquor stores had anything cool on shelves (sadly no, though the big Chicago chain had a nice coupon that I used to buy a bottle of blended whiskey) and grab some lunch.

Lil Beaver was indeed a small space, tucked away like many startup breweries in a small industrial strip about five miles from Destihl. A bud and I each ordered a flight of four beers, with a bit of overlap between them. My favorite was the pastry stout, Cheat Day, an imperial stout with brownie batter(!) and coffee. They also had what can only be described as a pastry cream ale called Now I Know My Peach Crumble, which literally tasted like its namesake. Everything I tried there was a cut above and I grabbed a few packaged beers to go that I have yet to try. (In theory, I take a few days off from beer each week.)

On a decidedly exciting note, the brewery had dozens of barrels aging beer. My first exposure to Lil Beaver was at a beer fest where I tried Rye Whole Lot of Wonderful, a rye-barrel-aged stout with chocolate and coconut. (Have you ever had a coconut stout? They're delicious!)

Following my hour or so at Lil Beaver I headed on home, happy to have spent some time among fellow beer geeks drinking good brews and having a good time.

A Stone-Cold Smart Hire

I missed it at the time but was very happy to learn a few days ago that my one-time colleague Sean Monahan has joined Stone Brewing as COO. (Full disclosure: I was a marketing flunky who supported Sean and the other supply chain and procurement partners for a few years in my former corporate life.)

Belated congratulations, Sean! I know you'll keep the "Enjoy By" series and other fresh brews flowing swiftly from the canning line to our hands.