Sunk King releases reserve cans of The Velvet Fog and Bourbon Barrel Johan the Barleywine

Then they need to change the name.

Al,

I was just told by someone at the brewery that not only is it the same beer but its the same batch (it's only been brewed one time) and that the beer spent some time in barrels but not enough to pick up the true barrel character for them to consider it to be barrel aged.

So my question is, is it worth the profit they're going to make (or even breaking even if that's even possibly the case-surely they're priced for a profit) off of 250 cans to charge this much and possibly take a hit from regular/potential customers that might see this as a bit shady?

For instance, I myself have been known to buy a 4-pack of Osiris for a canoeing trip or whatever, but I doubt the next time I'm trying to decide I'll pick it up again knowing they've been pricing me out of their market with these special releases. It doesn't make me mad they do it, it's their right to charge whatever they want, and I'll be happy not buying it like every other one of their "special" releases I've passed on. But I do question if it's the right direction for a brewery who, IMO at least, has been releasing pretty average beers since their opening a couple years ago. Right place right time.

I highly doubt Sun King would release the unbarrel aged version of the base year and call it the same name. The Velvet Fog released last spring was barrel aged and had a decent amount of bourbon to it.

I would be shocked if they released a different velvet fog. If I remember correctly, Velvet Fog was batch 333. Any changes would be confusing. I am certain that that thing had a ton of barrel in it, which put some people off at Kahn's (sigh). I do hope they didn't change anything since that was probably my favorite SK beer. Here's to hoping

I thought the barrel aged version was called Pappy Fog. At least that is what they called it at FOBAB.

I'm sure they have a bunch of different barrels

If my memory serves me right Pappy Fog was a special version of the batch, but not all of it made it to PvW barrels.

Anyone know how much Velvet Fog will hit distro round Indy?

what's the line look like this morning

Only about 15-20ish people total around opening time. Well organized with wrist bands and taking down names to avoid double dipping

FYI - As of around 11:00 they said they had around 60 of the BBL Johan available that were not reserved.

Very, very small amount. The majority of accounts will only get one case. Kahns only got three.

There were still BB Johan cans for non reservation pickup at 430. They also had Velvet Fog with no limit available at the brewery.

Hey it's rated 3.6 soo umm.....I forgot where I was going with this.

There's also this:
We had been talking about setting up some distribution in Chicago so that we could send beer up that way surrounding Chicago Craft Beer Week and FoBAB, but after a lot of back and forth we decided to abandon the possibility. The laws surrounding distribution and of distribution rights are incredibly convoluted and one sided towards the distributor in Illinois and we felt we would be best served to stay the course in our current market.
via email from Sun King co-founder, Clay Robinson.
http://beerpulse.com/2013/01/sun-king-brewing-not-expanding-distribution-to-chicago-after-all/

yeah, i mean I guess it would be cool if they actually distributed consistently to their home state before going out of state....

I passed on an opportunity to get Johan at the brewery at about noon yesterday. I love Sun King, but $25 for 16oz of anything is too rich for my blood.

I picked up the 2 pack of Velvet Fog, which was expensive but WAY more reasonable than Johan.

i have one BA Johan on reservation....but still haven't decided if I really want it or not....leaning more and more towards passing on it.....

I would rather buy 2 bottles of J.W. Lees and a sixer of anything else in the store for less money instead of 25 bones for a single pint of beer.