In 2013, Chris and I drove my white Golf R to Chicago for Goose Island’s Black Friday release. It was windy, cold, miserable as we spent 8 hours in front of Binny’s waiting to get our bottles then move across the street to the brewpub for a brewer’s tasting with pairings of all of that year’s variants. We had been chasing Bourbon County Stout for 2 years prior to that and by 2013, this was my favorite imperial stout. That hasn’t changed and since 2013, I’ve been to Chicago I think 4 times since then once not for Black Friday when Heather and I flew over in October in 2015 for Rare Day which took place at their barrel warehouse and then we didn’t go back for Black Friday that year so 2013, 2014, 2015 were in Chicago. 2016 no BCS festivities were had and in 2017 I just drove down to Massachusetts for their beer release. We started thinking about going to Chicago in 2018 but all of us sort of agreed if the flights worked, we’d go but driving was out.
Then Heather found out that Goose island had opened a brewpub in Philly so in 2018, we drove the very short 7 hours south to Philadelphia. We bought some beer in the morning where instead of the 1st people in line getting there on Thanksgiving like Chicago, we got there at 5AM and were first until 7AM. No line and it was a lot of fun. Then we went to Goose’s brewpub and tried all of that year’s variants on tap and went home. Great easy day.
This year, we applied for “Prop day” which took place 1st of November in Chicago and didn’t get tickets so we once again drove down to Philly. This time it was just Chris and I as heather stayed in NH with family. We decided not to get there early. We left NH at 4AM, in Philly by 9:30 and the small line was now gone and we went into a beer store and had no limits on any of the remaining bottles. Chris and I bought 2 cases of BCS and then went to the brew pub where, like Chicago many years ago, they were doing a Brewer’s BCS Pairing Tasting!
$120 a person (it used to be $80) and you’d have a 2 hour tasting with all of the variants along with some pairings and Q&A with brewers. It was fun…a lot of fun. There were some great brunch items, we were there from 11AM to 5PM just hanging out, relaxing and enjoying this year’s Bourbon County Beers. So..6 years later, Chris and I have officially made Black Friday a Goose Island tradition. I think Philadelphia is our permanent spot now for Black Friday with Chicago being a place I’ll go if I get raffle tickets to one of their pre-parties that happens in October like Prop or Rare day. If we don’t win tickets, Black Friday in Philly is a fall-back. I’m definitely amazed that after all of this year, despite really narrowing what this beer hobby is to me that I still keep this annual tradition alive. Now, some photos from this year’s Black Friday 2019 in Philadelphia
