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.