This past Black Friday, like many before, saw the annual drop of many, many barrel-aged beers from many brewers across the country. But one brewery has been doing the barrel-aged beer Black Friday drop longer than anyone: Goose Island.

This year the variants had some newcomers along with some familiar twists but the one that I wanted to try was the 30^th Anniversary BCBS. A nod to three decades of putting heavy boozy stouts into used barrels. To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Bourbon County Stout, Goose got small batch barrels from Booker’s, Knob Creek, Basil Hayden, and Baker’s and blended them together. They seem to have attempted harmony for this batch, and I think they did.

The 30^th Anniversary beer pours much like the regular BCBS. The nose is bourbon through-and-through. The flavor arrives on the first sip as a strong of “barrel presence” in this beer. A slight fruitiness appears as the beer warms. Something like a cordial cherry. The beer is big, tastes big. It is not hot yet warms the belly on the way down. This beer is exceptional, but it is not without baggage.

This bottle cost me nearly $45. Retail. That is exorbitant.

It seems to clash for me much like another current event, the World Cup.

Soccer is my first true love. I played from youth rec league, to club, to college. I officiated for decades. Soccer is the one sport that regardless of the level of play, I find it truly compelling. The World Cup is the ultimate tournament. Champions League and the Euro are appointment viewing but there is something seemingly pure about country-against-country in an all-world tournament. There are international story lines at play. There is history being made at every game.

This time around FIFA has chosen Qatar to play host. Chosen after a disgustingly corrupt bidding process where billions … yes, billions … of dollars changed hands. Chosen even though the climate is hostile to the hosting an outdoor soccer tournament. Chosen even though due to climate it cannot be held in the summer and therefore wreaked havoc on league schedules. Chosen despite a total lack of infrastructure at the time of bidding. Infrastructure that in the decade since selection has been built on the backs of modern-day indentured servants in deadly conditions. Hundreds of men died to bring this tournament to Qatar. Hundreds of thousands of lives have certainly been ruined by the grueling and inhuman working conditions.

But do I watch? God help me, yes. I watch and I love it. I love every second of it.

Watching the FIFA World Cup is not a morally neutral act.

Buying a bottle of BCBS is not with the same gravity of conscience, but it is not a neutral act either. As one friend put it “that is like sucking Darth Vader’s nipple [after] blowing in his ear.” The analogy works on a couple of levels. This beer is as black and as shiny as his helmet. Both have some char on them.

Much like the World Cup the packaging for 30^th Anniversary BCBS is impressive. A beautifully constructed box to hold the heavy thick glass bottle. A nice label with gold embossing. A hefty tag hung around the neck showing how the barrels were blended for this very special stout. Well thought out words printed on the box patting everyone at Goose Island on the back for making such a special beer and for doing so for so many years. It is all very self-important, and it gives a flair to the event that this beverage aims to create.

Putting $45 of my hard-earned money into ABInBev’s pocket … even for a beer this good … just doesn’t leave me feeling right. Unlike soccer, I do not think I will come back for more. I think I am done with BCBS.

Post-Script:

I gave up on Founders years ago after their HR and PR practices left me feeling poorly about supporting their business. I stopped hunting for Breakfast Stout and KBS. I am not going back.

Goose Island is not Founders but giving money to AB InBev is not morally neutral from a craft beer consumer standpoint. If you disagree, that is your position. You are welcome to it. I am not here for argument. Do what you want with your money.

Tröegs Independent Brewing turned 25 last week. It is a big deal. 25 years for any business is impressive. In craft beer, it feels like more than middle-aged compared to a lot of breweries out there. I mean that as a huge compliment. Many craft brewers do not make it this far. Most businesses never do.

Frankly, you do not make it 25 years without a lot of hard work and exceptional business practices.

I have had the benefit of having Tröegs in my life for nearly 18 years. It was the gateway to craft beer and no other brewery has done more to help me define my taste for beer than Tröegs. It is the hometown brewery and my favorite way to wind down a day, celebrate with friends, or just enjoy a cold one. Tröegenator is always in my fridge as the official beer of my home. Sunshine Pilsner is regularly sitting right next to it and the various seasonals rotate from the brewery into my fridge.

I have had the added benefit of talking to lots of folks in and around the brewery for years. John has come on the podcast often enough to be a “friend of the show” and a friend in real life too.

I have written about my thoughts on the “Tröegs way” a couple of times. I have offered my thoughts on their scratch program as “breadcrumbs.” I have spoken more times than I can count about the importance of “intent” in brewing and how Tröegs work with intent. I have discussed their openness and invitation to explore alongside them. But there is another concept that I have been thinking about for a long time: “Everything is important.”

“Everything is important” comes from Singer Vehicle Design. Singer was founded by Rob Dickinson in 2009. Before starting Singer, Rob was lead vocalist for alt-rock band Catherine Wheel. After his short musical career was finished, he started doing what later came to be commonly called “resto-mods” of air-cooled 911 Porsches. Singer likes to say that their 911s are “reimagined.” Singer’s cars sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions (not including the cost of the donated vehicle). Their motto is “Everything is important.” It is the consideration that no detail is too small to be considered, reimagined, reengineered, rethought, improved, and perfected. Nothing about a Singer is overlooked. The flow of quarter panels is a consideration when selecting tire sizes and widths. The bolts that hold the seat to the body are thoughtfully considered. They are not just painting the back of the fence no one will see. They effectively are obsessing over how the paint at the back the fence will look as the light from the sun changes through the day. It can appear pathological. This is being done, mind you, to a vehicle that many consider already “perfect.”

Over the years, listening to John, I have heard him consider all aspects of brewing. Things I never considered were brought forward and discussed by him in detail. He was talking about how moving from Harrisburg to Hershey meant different water chemistry and how they would account for it. Open fermentation was important for Dreamweaver to get just the right essence from the yeast. Discussing how year-to-year cherry harvests affected the color of Mad Elf. How local or PA grain was important to Tröeganator and other beers. Consideration is give to the belch as part of the beer’s character. The recent height of this attention to detail was when he was talking about how CO2 could change a beer. Food grade CO2 was not necessarily good enough. I could go on and on about all the tiny little decisions and the obsession with precision in every single beer they brew that has been shared.

Tröegs considers all those things and many, many more that I will never even know about when they are making your beer. 25 years of sweating the details. Everything is important.

Cheers to 25 years and to 25 more.

Post Script:

While writing this post I have been sipping on a couple cans of Tröegs 25 Years: Birthday Pale Ale. It has a pleasant balanced bitterness from the Cascade hops. It is a little zesty and a lot floral. It feels like a throwback and a welcome one. I loved it. It brought back a lot of memories. The only problem I can find with this beer is that I have very little of it and the brewery-only release is sold out.

Disclosure: Tröegs was kind enough to hook me up with a 4-pack of the pale ale.

There was an alternate version of this post that centered on “adventure and curiosity” instead of “everything is important.” But as I was writing it… I went with the latter. That is how writing is sometimes I guess.

The phrase “adventure and curiosity” comes from a little video from six years ago. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vUA27IiuA8. I recommend you check it out. Chris and John talk about their history, and a little bit about their brewing philosophy (which somehow gets cut down from could be hours of conversation to a couple seconds). Adventure and curiosity are still part of Tröegs. I know it always will be. Because Chris and John are like that.

Yes. I am playing the Mega Millions to afford a Singer 911. More about their obsession here, and here (pick up at about the 3 minute mark on this one).

Unlike Singer, Tröegs appears to have brought back the Pale Ale unmodified. It did not need it.

Wine has this word that is associated with it frequently: Terroir.

It is a French word and when associated with wine it means: How a particular region’s climate, soils and aspect (terrain) affect the taste of wine. Some regions are said to have more ‘terroir’ than others.

This can present itself in lots of different ways I am told. From less acidic soil to cooler temps at a higher elevation, or the wind coming from out at sea. All are natural factors that result in a cumulative impact on the wine and how it presents to the imbiber.

Craft beer has considered terroir with such things as grain, hops, and water. But that never really felt right. Not much grain comes from the immediate region of most American brewers, hops are limited in where they can be grown with great results, and brewers are fiddling with water chemistry all the time.

So what could give beer its terroir? It’s the brewery and the brewer themselves. Who and where your beer is made matters. Brewing allows for an endless series of tinkering which makes subtle or dramatic changes. Those choices should be the expression of intent and provide the terroir of the beer. The where it is made and by who matters.

Turning towards the beer review portion of this post. This evening at the encouragement of Norm from Funk Brewing I purchased a couple four-packs of Double Citrus. For a number of years this was a big release for Funk. I anticipated it and would seek it out. When it dropped recently, I shrugged and kind of forgot about it.

That was because the last time I had it, I did not care for the big 8% double IPA. To be frank… I thought it had gone downhill. Badly.

I get the impression I was not alone in that assessment. Others asked for Funk to “go back to the old recipe” or to “make it like you used to.”

In this case, that meant bringing it back in-house as it had been brewed on contract.

Contract brewing is something I have talked about on the podcast and it has never sat right with me. If you are not brewing your beer, then it is not craft and it is not yours. Contract brewing has been explained to be as a “necessary evil” to aid expansion for brewers that cannot scale up or as something “no one gives a shit about that…” Neither of those is true.

It does not need to be a necessary evil and people do give a shit about if even if they do not know it.

Double Citrus is a prime example. Bringing the brewing back in-house on Funk equipment by Scott and not someone brewing what Scott and Funk told them to brew made a huge difference. The beer has returned to form. It is forward with an rousing hoppiness, sweet middle from the honey, and a balance of citrus, pine, and those fun tropical notes that got washed out in prior releases.

Most importantly… no hop burn. The contract brewing stuff has a hop burn finish with vegetable matter. The contracted stuff was not cared for. That is the only assumption I can be left with.

Which is unfortunate. In a craft beer world that has been trained on FOMO and an never ending list of “new” beers, having a flagship and sought after seasonal product should be the goal of all great brew houses.

But take heart… in this case Funk has reversed course. It has returned to form in Double Citrus and is worth checking out.

That brings us back to terroir. What is the terroir of Funk? In this case, it could be as simple as the care of a brewer doing his best work. Putting out beer that they are proud of because it is an expression of their nuanced decisions, hard work, and intent. Since when has the intent of a contract brewer ever been something to consider? I would argue, it is not considered because, by definition, it cannot exist. Contract brewers are mercenaries, brewing this beer before they brew the next beer designed by someone else with some other name on the label.

Post Script:

Norm from Funk reached out and asked me to consider checking Double Citrus out and talking about it. He gave me some background on the changes but did not contribute to the opinions expressed above; like always those are just mine.

I paid for the beer reviewed here today.

Modern Times is looking to sell or for an investor to bail them out of crippling debt. As a friend of the show said: “I hate to say this, but … just go under.” Pretty much summed it up for me.