Kyle Nabilcy
The full lineup of 8 Bourbon County beers.
Discussing the lineup of Goose Island’s Bourbon County beers is getting to be like the sports pundits talking about the March Madness college basketball bracket. There’s as many opinions on the best of the bunch as there are people talking about it, and just like you can’t watch all of every game, the average drinker is highly unlikely to be able to get a bottle of each Bourbon County beer. Especially now that there are eight different releases in the brand.
Just like the pundits stack themselves up like cordwood to break down the tournament picks on the selection show, Goose Island hauls in a handful of beer media types to experience the Bourbon County brand showcase every year. This year’s tasting event was held on Oct. 2, and for the first time, your humble Two Cent Pint columnist made the cut. Here, then, are your 2018 Bourbon County tasting notes.
Bourbon County Brand Wheatwine
Wheatwine, WTF? Where’s the barleywine? Is not barleywine life? Wheatwine may be an unexpected change to the Bourbon County lineup, but in the glass it is a return to form for a slot that had been occupied over the last few years by an unpleasantly harsh Barleywine. Wheatwine, even with its 15 percent-plus ABV, is smooth and nimble on the palate, with a boozy nose but an easy-drinking body. It’s the first entirely-new Bourbon County recipe since the introduction of Barleywine, the first we tasted at the media presentation, and the first I’m likely to crack open if I’m fortunate enough to find one on Black Friday. It’s great. Don’t sleep just because it doesn’t have its own hashtag.
Bourbon County Brand Coffee Barleywine
There’s the barleyw — wait, this is the Coffee BCS this year? No coffee stout? Is Goose Island just trolling everyone or what? Lots of question marks, and maybe the biggest among the beer dorks will be just how long is the perfect duration to age this new variant. While the coffee is pronounced in the aroma, and alluringly so, the sip experience is a little hot. Still very tasty, but hot. My tablemate and Chicago friend/baseball enemy Josh Noel noted that it’s entirely possible that the seven-ish weeks that’ll elapse before this beer hits shelves may be enough to smooth it out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people wait even longer to really savor this one.
Bourbon County Brand Stout
All right, here we go. The stouts. This year’s original BCS — we call it the Basic Black around my house — is, like most of the entire Bourbon County 2018 lineup, ringing in at just over 15 percent (or just under, depending on which barrel your bottle came from). Regarding what brewmaster Jared Jankoski called the “very hostile fermentation” environment, “it stops where it stops.” This year, you’ll be enjoying a very balanced and clean-sipping Basic Black that is exceptionally fudgy, with lots of Tootsie Roll notes and just a little zing of alcohol burn in the back. There’s a good spirit presence at least partially due, the brewers surmised, to the boozy freshness of the barrels this year.
Bourbon County Brand Midnight Orange Stout
After last year’s blueberry almond and bananas Foster BCS variants, to say nothing of this year’s fakeouts (Neapolitan and Horchata BCS), the radar was officially up for whatever uncharacteristically whackadoo adjunct variant Goose Island would uncork this year. Well, say hello to Midnight Orange, a riff on Terry’s Chocolate Orange candies that’s frankly becoming a little cliche at this point. Cliche or not, this is a competently constructed fruited stout that was tasty even to this orange/chocolate naysayer. Don’t expect orange juice, though; this really is more of a chocolate-covered candied orange peel situation.
Bourbon County Brand Vanilla Stout
Do a Control-F for “VR” on any Midwest beer trade board and even today you’ll find plenty of people searching for Goose Island’s 2014 Vanilla Rye Bourbon County Stout. It’s damn near everyone’s favorite BCS variant, released BI — Before Infection, the 2015 quality control debacle that resulted in scores of bottles being returned for refund. While that 2014 VR had the spicy bite of rye barrels to rein in the vanilla sweetness, this year’s straight Vanilla BCS definitively does not. There is no questioning or missing the vanilla’s impact on this beer, a botanical and almost untempered sweetness, as if someone split a vanilla bean and swirled it into the basic stout. Some folks will love this, but I found it almost too much. It’s almost a mixed blessing since it may end up being quite a challenge to find a bottle anyway.
Bourbon County Brand Bramble Rye Stout
That said, sometimes even a rye barrel can’t wrangle the most enthusiastic adjunct ingredients. 2018 Bramble Rye represents a more or less exact reproduction of 2011’s Bramble Rye, which was still “syrupy” with fruit according to my notes from 2015, when I last tasted it. I might let this year’s sit for four years, too, because it is an unmitigated bowl of fruit. The nose, the taste, the body, they all scream JUICED BERRIES, which may be your jam, but obscures the base beer to the point where even an adjunct-lover like me begs off. This will be another hot commodity on Black Friday.
Proprietor’s Bourbon County Brand Stout
And then we get to the BCS versions that won’t touch Wisconsin soil at all, unless someone brings them back across state lines. First up: the 2018 Proprietor’s BCS, which has been a Chicago-market exclusive since it was introduced in 2013. The recipe has changed from year to year, and this year’s might have put off some of the more extreme pastrybois: it’s just chocolate. But it’s not just cacao nibs like most chocolate stouts — there’s also actual processed chocolate, sourced from Theo Chocolate in Seattle. (Theo and Barry Callebaut in Switzerland also provided some of the nibs, which are used in lesser amounts in Midnight Orange.) The result is the truest chocolate flavor I’ve ever encountered in a beer. No nonsense levels of chocolate, like licking the brownie batter off the spatula in my youth. If you love chocolate and beer, this will be worth a modest trade, or maybe even a road trip.
Reserve Bourbon County Brand Stout
Want a BCS variant even harder to acquire than Prop? Try to find a bottle of Reserve BCS, which is technically available in more markets but definitely more scarce on the shelves. This offshoot of the Basic Black was aged in 12-year old Elijah Craig barrels, which went on to produce 2017’s Whisky Advocate Whisky of the year, Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. It’s a massive beer, which sands off the pointy ends of Basic Black and replaces them with luxury, like a deep leather armchair in a mahogany library. Again, it’s almost too much, and I enjoyed the balance of heat and depth that the base BCS offered. But for having to go to Chicago, Kentucky, or New York to get it, I’ll stick around Madison and be happy with whatever I can find here. It’s going to be a good year for BCS-hunters nationwide.
