{"id":8713,"date":"2012-12-11T09:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.guysdrinkingbeer.com\/?p=8713"},"modified":"2021-08-27T14:26:37","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T19:26:37","slug":"from-the-cellar-founders-kbs-5-year-vertical-2008-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guysdrinkingbeer.com\/from-the-cellar-founders-kbs-5-year-vertical-2008-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"From The Cellar: Founders KBS 5 Year Vertical"},"content":{"rendered":"
Founders says:<\/p>\n
“What we\u2019ve got here is an imperial stout brewed with a massive amount of coffee and chocolates, then cave-aged in oak bourbon barrels for an entire year to make sure wonderful bourbon undertones come through in the finish. Makes your taste buds squeal with delight.”<\/em><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Founders KBS<\/em> Ryan<\/strong>: To say this vertical has been a long time coming is an understatement. Those of you who have tried to scrounge up even one bottle of Founders elusive KBS in the last few years knows how hard it can be.<\/p>\n When we first began this endeavor, two years before we began this site, Founders KBS was still called Kentucky Breakfast Stout. It also wasn’t as impossible to find as it is now.<\/p>\n <\/a>It was 2008, the early years in my craft beer renaissance, and my Sherpa at the time was a once-regular character here nicknamed “frequent commenter Ben,” for obvious reasons — he frequently commented on our reviews. In 2008 he worked at a beer store along the Southport Corridor, and it was FCB who encourage me to pick up a four pack of KBS when it was released in the spring of 2008.<\/p>\n At the time, I had no clue what a Kentucky Breakfast Stout was — but I trusted my craft beer Sherpa. So I plucked down the $22 for a four pack.<\/p>\n Two of the four were consumed. In fact, I believe Karl was the lucky recipient of one of the two bottles, and the other two were stored away. Not because I had any grand plans for them, but because I didn’t want to drink them right away.<\/p>\n So they sat. And sat. And sat. Until the 2009 release of KBS where, again, FCB helped me secure a four pack. Rinse and repeat. Drink two, hold onto two. Again, no rhyme or reason, just because.<\/p>\n It wasn’t until 2010 that my interest in craft beer really began to hit its stride — and this beer became a heck of a lot harder to find.<\/p>\n As we were prepping to launch this site we thought, “wouldn’t it be really cool if we drank one of those 2008 bottles, and a 2009 bottle AND a 2010 bottle…and wrote down what it tasted like?!?” So that’s what we set out to do, everyone keeping their eyes and ears peeled for KBS when it was released.<\/p>\n And it came and went in the blink of an eye. We got nothing.<\/p>\n Our saving grace came in a work trip to Paducah, Kentucky – home of Roof Brothers<\/a> – a Binny’s of the South, if you will. Not only was I able to find a few bottles along the way to cellar, I also purchased a growler fill of KBS at Roof Brothers.<\/p>\n Yup, a growler. Of KBS.<\/p>\n A week later we sat down for a much-anticipated three-year vertical of Founders KBS<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not wanting to stop there, we vowed to scrape together one bottle in 2011 and one bottle in 2012 for a five-year vertical.<\/p>\n The last two years proved to be much harder to secure a single bottle, let alone a four pack. In fact, we didn’t even bother trying any of the bottle shops in Chicago. Those bottles of KBS were already spoken for, reserved months in advance.<\/p>\n Last year we were forced to trade for a bottle with one of Andrew’s friends who lives in Georgia. This year I had to reserve one at a beer store in Kalamazoo, MI to pick up on another work trip.<\/p>\n But we did it.<\/p>\n And, strangely, this has almost become more about the journey than drinking the beer. Think about it; we searched and scoured and made phone calls and traded emails trying to find one bottle of beer, every year, around St. Patrick’s Day — for five years.<\/p>\n Was it worth the anxiety, headaches, time and money? You bet it was.<\/p>\n
\n Imperial Stout, 11.2% ABV<\/em><\/p>\n