The Bar Towel

Hello

I wanted to see if anyone does the run down to Premier Gourmet for the black friday release? Can anyone attest to how crazy is it?

has anyone gone to Chicago for the day/weekend in recent times? thinking about doing this myself (for more than just BCBS, but cmon)

I've gone to Black Friday in Chicago for each of the last two years. Mainly for the event at Goose Island Clybourn (which is amazing BTW), but I've also been able to bring back some BCBS.

It's tough to find the "rares" unless you want to line up or beer chase around the city which I don't have the patience for.

Last year after Black Friday, on the Saturday morning, I walked over to the Whole Foods downtown and found cases of BCBS sitting on the floor in the beer section. Nobody around. Grabbed some and brought it home.

So, a story longer than it needed to be but in my experience its fairly easy to get the main BCBS on BF weekend, less easy for the rare stuff.

I went to Chicago over the gap between Christmas and New Years last year. We got 8 BCBS, 4 BCBW and I think it was 3 of the special BC stouts with the berries and whatnot added in. We just went into the Binnys behind the Linkin Park Goose Island and asked the manager, he had a bunch stashed in back and likes Canadians.

Cass wrote:I've gone to Black Friday in Chicago for each of the last two years. Mainly for the event at Goose Island Clybourn (which is amazing BTW), but I've also been able to bring back some BCBS.

It's tough to find the "rares" unless you want to line up or beer chase around the city which I don't have the patience for.

Last year after Black Friday, on the Saturday morning, I walked over to the Whole Foods downtown and found cases of BCBS sitting on the floor in the beer section. Nobody around. Grabbed some and brought it home.

So, a story longer than it needed to be but in my experience its fairly easy to get the main BCBS on BF weekend, less easy for the rare stuff.

Is it a pain to get into the event @ Clybourn or just a matter of lining up?

It's a ticketed event and it usually sells out pretty fast. It hasn't gone on sale yet that I know of so pay attention to Goose's FB etc. for news.

It's an awesome event but not a traditional beer fest - it's a seated, tutored tasting of a bunch of varieties of BCBS with the brewers. A lot of fun and quite unique.

beerguykw wrote:Hello

I wanted to see if anyone does the run down to Premier Gourmet for the black friday release? Can anyone attest to how crazy is it?

If I recall correctly, last year Premier didn't get the BCS bottles on time and did not release them on Black Friday but did one day the following week and they sold out in a matter of an hour.

They also had both BCS and BCBBW on their growler station over the Christmas holidays.

Craig wrote:I went to Chicago over the gap between Christmas and New Years last year. We got 8 BCBS, 4 BCBW and I think it was 3 of the special BC stouts with the berries and whatnot added in. We just went into the Binnys behind the Linkin Park Goose Island and asked the manager, he had a bunch stashed in back and likes Canadians.

x 2.
the beer manager's supercool and does indeed like Torontonians/Canadians.
be a mensch and bring a nice bottle of something local as a gift.

Everything ran out very quickly at Premier last year. Some of the Consumers stores get them too but they often hold bottles for their buddies after selling out in 30 minutes or so.

I've had much better luck at Pizza Plant - they had BCBS on tap the past 2 years.

atomeyes wrote:

Craig wrote:I went to Chicago over the gap between Christmas and New Years last year. We got 8 BCBS, 4 BCBW and I think it was 3 of the special BC stouts with the berries and whatnot added in. We just went into the Binnys behind the Linkin Park Goose Island and asked the manager, he had a bunch stashed in back and likes Canadians.

x 2.
the beer manager's supercool and does indeed like Torontonians/Canadians.
be a mensch and bring a nice bottle of something local as a gift.

If anyone does bring him a gift, like I probably will the next time I go, he told us he preferred British style beers to American for his personal tastes.

Also, I strongly suspect he doesn't hold back beer so much for Canadians as he does for people who come from far away and obviously care about their beer. Regardless, seemed like a cool dude.

Cass wrote:It's a ticketed event and it usually sells out pretty fast. It hasn't gone on sale yet that I know of so pay attention to Goose's FB etc. for news.

It's an awesome event but not a traditional beer fest - it's a seated, tutored tasting of a bunch of varieties of BCBS with the brewers. A lot of fun and quite unique.

Great, thanks. I'll keep an eye out. Spending thursday through monday in Chicago.

Jealous! Not sure if I'm going to make it down as I'm at Fobab 2 weeks prior to that. If I hear anything about tickets I'll post it up here.

Posted onto Facebook by Mike Shatzel if anyone wants to go get good and day drunk:

Blue Monk is tapping Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Bourbon County Coffee Stout, bourbon County Vanilla Stout & Bourbon County Barleywine 2013 on Saturday November 29th at 1130AM

ticket information for the event @ GI is up now.

http://blackfriday2014.brownpapertickets.com/

Cass wrote:Posted onto Facebook by Mike Shatzel if anyone wants to go get good and day drunk:

Blue Monk is tapping Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Bourbon County Coffee Stout, bourbon County Vanilla Stout & Bourbon County Barleywine 2013 on Saturday November 29th at 1130AM

yeah, a few of us are likely to make the trip.