One advantage of watching the TTB for label approvals is that you can get the opportunity to get sneak peeks at things that might happen.  I saw these labels come through this week, and wanted to pass on you to you guys the possibility variants for this years Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout – if that beer is your thing, of course.

Keep in mind, none of this in set in stone.  Label approvals only mean that the brewery has the ability to legally release this, not that they will or when.  With that being said… onward!

The Variants

Bourbon County Brand Stout

  • This is your standard base of the beer, obviously a returning annual release from the brewery.

Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout

  • The coffee variant is another annual returning release.  The beer is aged in bourbon barrels with Intelligentsia dark roasted coffee beans.

Bourbon County Brand Reserve Stout

  • The beer was aged in 12 year old Elijah Craig bourbon barrels.

Borubon County Brand Neopolitin Stout

  • A new variant for the brand.  This beer was aged in bourbon barrels and blended with strawberry puree, chocolate, vanilla and lactose.

Bourbon County Brand Proprietors Stout

  • Typically only released in the Chicago market, this beer is aged in bourbon barrels with cocoa nibs and chocolate added.

Bourbon County Brand Bramble Rye Stout

  • Aged in rye whiskey barrels and blended with raspberries and blackberries.

Bourbon County Brand Vanilla Stout

  • Aged in bourbon barrels with vanilla beans.

Bourbon County Brand Horchata Stout

  • Another new variant, aged in bourbon barrels and flavored with Ceylon cinnamon, vanilla and lactose.

Bourbon County Brand Wheatwine

  • This could possibly be replacing the barleywine this year, a simliar beer but with a higher wheat content.

About Bourbon County Brand Stout

This beer from Chicago’s Goose Island is known for being the first commercially available bourbon barrel aged stout.  The beer was first released in 1995 and has followed it up with an extremely successful run of annual releases since.  The idea of barrel aging beers commercially has grown and spread to thousands of breweries since Goose Island first released the beer, and their practices of how to do so have become commonplace in the industry.

I’m not going to really dig into this beer to deeply (right now… it would be a fun topic at some point, though).  If you want to know more there are few better places to turn than All About Beer, where Jeff Alworth wrote up a pretty fantastic piece about the beer back in 2016.

Needless to say, regardless of who now owns the Goose Island Brewery (AB-InBev) the beer itself has an important place in the history of craft beer in the United States.

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