Goose Island Bourbon County Cherry Rye

Update on Goose Island Bourbon County Cherry Rye

Brewer's Notes:At Goose Island our brewers love experimenting with their beer almost as much as they love drinking it. This unique blend of Bourbon County Brand Stout was aged in rye whiskey barrels with loads of whole Michigan cherries. This is one massive beer the brewers are proud to finally let you share with your friends at home - or not. After your first sip, you'll agree, this beer has some real stones.

How to get this beer:

It is getting harder and harder with these allocated and rare beers and bourbons.   We have tried a number of methods from lottery, fastest finger on the internet, to fastest people to get to the store.   Even using the lottery method, I had a couple of people say they would not shop at the store again because they did not get any Pappy Van Winkle.   None of the systems are perfect and we always get complaints no matter which way we try.    We don't have a way to track sales of regular customers and we want to find a way to reward those that frequent the store.  These are the people that help us increase our allocations of these rare beers because it is based on our sales of Goose Island "regular beers" and Founders "regular beers" to get their allocated beers like the Bolt Cutter.    One thing I have noticed with the previous methods is that I see a lot of people come in to get their allocated beer only and do not purchase any other beer.   And then I see regular customers that are in a few times a week buying the "regular" beers and not getting the rare beers.  So we are going to try something different on the Cherry Bourbon County.  I am told that there is even less of it coming than the Coffee (which crashed our website).  And the demand for the Cherry seems to be much higher.

Here is what we are going to try...when it arrives.

• I am not going to announce when it arrives.
• At Forsyth, I will put one bottle on the shelf each day until it is gone.
• Each morning, we will draw a random time to put it on the shelf during that day.  Could be early in the day or near closing time.
• Depending on our allocation, there will be some random bottles put out at our other locations as well.  Again, no info on time or which day it might appear.
• It will go on the shelf and the first person to see it will be able to purchase it.
• We will not give any info out on the time it will hit the shelf or if it has already been sold each day.
• This way, hopefully regular shoppers will find it on the shelf when they are in for their regular beer purchases.
• Please, still one bottle per person.  We will take down names at the register when they are purchased to keep it at one per person.
• Again we are just trying to mix it up and be as fair as possible to try to spread the rare beers out as best as possible.  When there are so many people looking for these beers and so little to be had there are going to be more disappointed people than happy ones.