Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and instead of drinking a Guinness I drank one of these. Goose Island is one of my favorite breweries. For their 1000th batch of beer at their brewpub in Chicago they decided to make a seriously heavy stout and age it for one hundred days in bourbon barrels.
My girlfriend and I shared the 12oz bottle (which was plenty). As she poured the beer we were both amazed at how black it was. It was like pouring ink into a glass. And regardless of what the label says about the "thick foam the color of a bourbon barrel", ours had no head. Perhaps we served it a little too cold. Regardless, the aroma was...amazing, with hints of caramel, smoke, and raisins. The first sip was rich and full-flavored, but I had a hard time pulling out any of the flavors until the aftertaste. A delicious real chocolate flavor emerged. With this beverage you've got to take it pretty slow. I'm glad we saved it for dessert.
Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout
Is it delicious?: A-
Is it interesting?: B
Drinkability: D+
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
jeff, have you tried the Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock? it is a wheat beer that has had some of the water evaporated out of it, resulting in a 12% beer!
it sounds remarkable.
have you had captain lawrence's smoke from the oak, also aged in bourbon barrels? sheer bliss. not as heavy as this goose island stout sounds, but i was having it from a cask and not a bottle. really just spectacular though.
(there are other varieties of smoke from the oak still to come - one is being aged in port barrels, i think.)
Awesome, thanks for the suggestions. Hopefully I'll be able to review these soon. I haven't quite decided whether I should review tap beers...I might just stick to packaged beverages. I would like to take a field trip up to Capt. Lawrence though!
Post a Comment