Goose Island Bourbon County Stout lineup

here you go...

I could offer a long preamble about the history of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout and why people care so much about its release every year on the day after Thanksgiving, but that would only get in the way of what most people want to know right now.

So let’s hold off on the context and get the news out of the way. Ladies and gentlemen, Goose Island’s 2015 Bourbon County beers will be: 

• Bourbon County Brand Stout;

• Bourbon County Brand Barleywine;

• Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout, made with Intelligentsia’s Los Delirios Nicaraguan coffee bean;

• Bourbon County Brand Regal Rye Stout, made with blackberry juice, cocktail cherries and sea salt;

• Proprietor’s Bourbon County Brand Stout, made with maple syrup aged in bourbon barrels, toasted pecans and guajillo peppers;

Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout, which is being aged for two years in 35-year-old Heaven Hill whiskey barrels.

As notable as what’s in the bottles will be the bottles themselves: All BCBS beers will be packaged in new 16.9-ounce custom brown bottles that will be sold individually. Designed by marketing and design firm VSA Partners, the bottles include prominent raised lettering and a small label affixed to the bottleneck.

Goose Island's manager of brewing innovation, Mike Siegel, said the new bottle is an effort to heighten the Bourbon County drinking experience. Though the beers are some of the most sought after in the world, they have until now been packaged in the same 12- and 22-ounce glass as much of the Goose Island lineup.

“This beer is something we put a lot of effort toward, and people stand in line all over the country for it,” Siegel said. “The challenge was to come up with a package that elevates it to the next level.”

And, before we dig in a little more on each beer, here’s the context promised above: To celebrate the brewery’s fifth birthday back in 1993, Goose Island’s then-brewmaster, Greg Hall, brewed the most audacious beer he could: a rich, boozy stout aged in barrels that previously held Jim Beam bourbon. Hall called the beer Bourbon County Stout.

The beer was a quick hit and helped launch a movement; aging imperial stouts in whiskey barrels has become an industry touchstone. Most “best beer in the world” lists include a healthy number of barrel-aged stouts, and at least a few are likely to come from the Bourbon County family. (Though Goose Island was sold to Anheuser-Busch in 2011, and some of its beer production has been exported to A-B breweries outside of Chicago, the Bourbon County beers continue to be made at Goose Island’s Fulton Street brewery.)

Twenty-two years later, the annual Black Friday release of the Bourbon County series has become a beer calendar event, drawing ever-larger crowds that begin gathering ever earlier; last year, the line at the Binny’s Beverage Depot on Marcey Street started to form Thursday night. The Bourbon County release is again planned to be held at that store.

I spent an hour discussing this year's releases with Siegel. Here's a bit more on each:

Bourbon County Brand Stout

As usual, BCBS will be a blend of imperial stouts Goose has aged for nearly a year in bourbon barrels from several Kentucky distilleries. Beer drinkers can expect a beer similar to past releases.

“We’re very happy with the beer, and we’ve got a process down that works for us,” Siegel said. “We just focused on making more this year.”

Goose pulled beer from about 4,500 bourbon casks this year — up from about 4,000 last year.

A Goose Island spokeswoman said the suggested retail price for Bourbon County Stout will be $9.99, which would be approximately the same suggested price-per-ounce cost as last year. However, retailers are free to price the beer as they wish. (I paid almost double what I should have at a downtown Walgreen store last year for a four-pack.) She declined to comment on the suggested cost of the other Bourbon County beers. 

Bourbon County Brand Barleywine

In its third year as part of the Bourbon County family, this beer is a blend of barleywine aged in bourbon barrels and barleywine aged in barrels that previously housed BCBS (and, before that, bourbon).

“From a brewing standpoint, it’s the same beer” as what was released the last two years, Siegel said.

Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout

Again made in collaboration with Intelligentsia Coffee — which Goose Island shares a wall with, if you didn’t know. Eight initial coffee possibilities were whittled to four. Those four were turned into cold brews that were mixed with BCBS until Los Delirios was picked as the winner.

“Last year’s Coffee was the boldest in my mind in terms of flavor,” Siegel said. “This year’s has some nice fruit character; it’s a little earthy. We went with something a little different from last year’s — potentially a little less bold in terms of overall flavor, but it’s still something that holds up.”

Bourbon County Brand Regal Rye Stout

Now we’re getting to the fun stuff. This beer, like previous Bourbon County releases aged in rye whiskey barrels, is a one-off made in limited amounts that will probably never be made again. So the race will be on to get a bottle.

That said, Regal Rye features two familiar Bourbon County ingredients: blackberry juice (blackberries were employed in 2012’s Bramble Rye) and cherries (featured in Cherry Rye, also from 2012).

Siegel said Goose experimented with several fruits for Regal Rye, but returned to the two familiar flavors because they mingle well with the flavors inherent in the base beer. The brewery opted for blackberry juice sourced from Valley Processing, in Sunnyside, Wash., instead of whole fruit both because it’s easier to use as an ingredient and for its richer flavor. The cherries used in Regal Rye are Luxardo cocktail cherries and include their bright, sugary syrup. The sea salt “adds another layer that will make the flavors pop slightly — depth to something that’s already deep.”

The result, Siegel said, is both sweet (from the cherries and syrup) and tart (from the blackberry juice).

Proprietor’s Bourbon County Brand Stout

In its third year of existence, Proprietor’s will again be distributed only in Chicago. Unlike previous incarnations, this year’s is being aged in bourbon, not rye, barrels.

Goose brewers submitted more than 50 suggestions for the new Proprietor’s; the winner came from Di Rodriguez, who has only been with the brewery since last fall. Siegel said it was a relatively easy decision.

“It was a landslide favorite,” he said. “People were just floored at the combination.”

The bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup comes from Ohio’s Sugar Chalet; Goose will toast the pecans at Kendall College; and the guajillo chili peppers lend “a slight hum of heat.”

“It’s a big beer that can stand up to a little spice,” Siegel said. “There’s a toasted nutiness in the beer, and the sweetness balances out the elements. BCS is sweet in and of itself, but the maple gives an added complexity to the sweetness.”

In a follow-up email, the brewery said Rodriguez's inspiration for the beer "was holiday feasts, specifically pecan pie. The pecans are toasted to really bring out the nuttiness in them; it’s the most prominent flavor and smell."

Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout

A return to one of Goose’s most legendary beers. The first incarnation of Rare Bourbon County was aged for two years in 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle barrels. This time, the beer sat for two years in 35-year-old Heaven Hill barrels that the brewery lucked into acquiring.

Siegel called the beer “an extra-oaky” version of BCBS. Don’t expect to see it again.

“I’m not saying we’ll do another Rare anytime soon,” he said. “It was a windfall opportunity and nothing we could plan for.”

As for 2016, well, the brewery is already strategizing.

“There’s stuff we’re excited about that we’re thinking about for 2016,” Siegel said. “The process in earnest starts almost immediately after we release the beer in November, and you always keep some ideas in the hopper.”