CHICAGO — OK, for the last time: it’s almost certainly not the 30th anniversary of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout.
As we first reported in 2016, the groundbreaking beer aged in bourbon barrels was likely first released in 1995 — not 1992, as the brewery continues to insist.
But Goose Island should have more questionable anniversaries, because its Bourbon County 30th Anniversary Reserve Stout, to be released the day after Thanksgiving among its family of seven barrel-aged Bourbon County beers, is elegance defined.
“Smooth” is a word people often use to describe beer when it’s easy to drink. It’s far from an ideal descriptor, though; sanded wood is smooth. Beer is not. But my instinctive thought upon first sipping 30th Anniversary Reserve Stout?
Smooth!
What that really means is that despite its 14.4% alcohol, it is an exceptionally approachable beer. It is not flashy. It is not trying to bowl over the drinker with muscularity. It is simply a lovely, nuanced and, yes, smooth stout rife with creamy notes of dark chocolate, oak, vanilla and caramel. There’s only the faintest wisp of boozy burn. It’s just a wonderfully threaded beer — whether celebrating a 27th anniversary or a 30th.
The 30th Anniversary Reserve Stout highlights an exceptionally strong Bourbon County lineup for Goose Island this fall. For all the lore and interest Bourbon County generates every November, the beers have been uneven in recent years. There has been excellence, there have been interesting experiments, there have been head-scratching attempts and there have been outright duds.
This year’s crop, from top to bottom, is particularly enjoyable, and across a broad range of ideas and ingredients.
It’s only appropriate that 30th Anniversary Reserve Stout ($40) should be the centerpiece of the lineup. The very first Bourbon County Stout, served only on draft at Goose Island’s original Clybourn Avenue pub, was aged in Jim Beam barrels. The anniversary version nods to that history, but amps things up a notch, blended from barrels from Beam’s Small Batch Bourbon Collection: Baker’s, Basil Hayden, Knob Creek and Booker’s. It’s an impressive nod to the Bourbon County heritage, while also breaking new ground.
As for the rest of the lineup, here are thoughts in order of which I enjoyed the beers:
I never expected to put Bourbon County Biscotti Stout (14.3%; $25) so high on this list. When Goose Island announced the Bourbon County lineup in August, it said to expect flavors of marzipan, cocoa and buttered toffee from the beer inspired by the classic Italian cookie. As I said at the time: That’s a lot of flavor in a beer, and if it’s balanced enough to be worth drinking 8 ounces, it’ll be a win.
Well, it’s a win.
Made with cocoa nibs, toasted almonds, anise seed and “natural flavors,” the aroma here actually worried me: anise leaps from the glass with hints of almond at the edges. It smells like an unbalanced black licorice bomb.
But the flavors are integrated perfectly on the palate. The anise is plainly there, but it’s surprisingly light, swirling with the dry-yet-fudgy chocolate character of the base beer and landing with a finish drier rather than sweeter — crucial to tying it together.
This will be a polarizing beer. Plenty of people will disagree with me about its merits. But I think it is brilliantly executed. Enjoying the flavor of anise and, to a lesser extent, almond, is a must to appreciate this beer. If you do, it’s a fascinating mingling of aroma and flavor.
Along with the anniversary stout, Bourbon County Two-Year Barleywine Reserve (17%; $40) is meant to be a showstopper of the lineup, blended from barrels of three different ages — 14, 16 and 17 years old — from Old Fitzgerald’s Bottled-In-Bond decanter series.
Between the booziness, the price and the lineage of the bourbon barrels, it’s meant to be a burly, memorable beer — and it is. It’s very dark for a barleywine, though hold it to the light and a ruby glow hovers in the glass.
Many of the best barrel-aged barleywines boast a complex web of flavors: toffee, vanilla, butterscotch and crème brûlée among them. This is not that. Two-Year Barleywine Reserve is an oaky, boozy behemoth with earthy, fruity accents — I get notes of cigar tobacco and plum. And that’s about it.
This is a deep, rich beast of a sipper with miles upon miles of character extracted from the bourbon barrels in which the beer was aged. Frankly, I miss some of the sweeter balancing characteristics; they would have served this beer well.
The longer I sat with Two-Year Barleywine Reserve, the more it seemed to transcend beer. It’s so oaky and so boozy, and there’s such depth of flavor, it began reminding me of cognac. This beer is undeniably well-built, and it is one to behold, technically — but maybe not as much one to enjoy.
As usual, the anchor of the lineup is Bourbon County Stout (14.3% alcohol; $13.99), available in the usual 500-milliliter bottles and, harking back to the old days, four-packs of 12-ounce bottles ($40). Goose Island likes to say it attempts to create the same Bourbon County Stout from year to year, but the truth is it varies wildly, volleying between different chocolate characters (skewing milkier, sweeter or darker) and sometimes boasting strong vanilla or fruity notes. The variation is part of the fun.
I enjoy this beer most years, but this year’s is especially tasty. Compared to the rest of the lineup, it’s also an excellent value.
The chocolate character here skews dark, dry and woody, finishing with a lightly muscular bite. It took a moment to figure out what the chocolate character reminded me of, and then hit me, hurtling me back to being a 12-year-old stuffing his face in the movie theater: Sno-Caps.
Those semisweet chocolate candies covered with white nonpareils are my favorite movie candy, so the flavor and aroma in this year’s Bourbon County Stout is just fine with me, and certainly preferable to sweet-skewing milk chocolate character it has taken on in the past. Bourbon character emerges at the beer warms, and so does a fudgy note. But the beer stays dry and is, once again, excellent.
Bourbon County Coffee Stout (13.2%; $25) is making its first appearance since 2017. This version is made with Intelligentsia Coffee’s Turihamwe blend from the African country of Burundi. It’s a very brawny coffee, and runs a bit roughshod over the base beer. Coffee character can lean fruity or nutty and create wonderful layers of nuance in a barrel-aged coffee stout. This one is mostly roasty.
It’s a bit one dimensional, albeit a tasty dimension for coffee lovers. I’d like the base beer to shine through a bit more and would be curious to try this again after the coffee character has mellowed a bit. I wonder if there will be a sweet spot for this beer in the coming weeks or months.
Like Biscotti Stout, Bourbon County Proprietor’s Stout (13.4%; $30) probably has no business working. It’s a take on the fruity, rum-based jungle bird cocktail, made with banana, coconut, lime and pineapple. Does the world really need a barrel-aged stout featuring lime and pineapple?
I would have thought not, but this beer ultimately works, walking right up to the edge of being overly busy, but without quite crossing it.
The aroma is all coconut and pineapple — veering into sunscreen territory — with the banana and lime in background. As in the Biscotti Stout, the ingredients are deployed smartly, never overpowering the base beer (unlike in Coffee Stout), and tying together on a fudgy wave into a surprising and unifying whole.
It’s an odd one, but it’s well done.
Lastly, Bourbon County Sir Isaac’s Stout (13.9%; $25) nods in the direction of Fig Newtons. It’s made with 10,000 pounds of Black Mission figs, and graham crackers are somehow deployed. Despite that whopping helping of figs, the fruitiness is fairly gentle in the aroma.
It’s a fun idea that’s executed fine, but I’d much rather have the standard Bourbon County Stout, especially at half the price. The figs soften the beer around the edges, transforming the dry finish into something gooier that takes on a chocolate syrup note. It’s a downgrade in what amounts to a shrug of a beer.
But landing with a shrug rather than a thud — as Bourbon County does some years — underscores the consistency of this year’s lineup. It’s a very strong crop, no matter how long the brand has been around.
Prices are recommended by Goose Island, but will vary by retailer.
