Goose Island Bourbon County Stout

Brewed by Goose Island Beer Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Chicago, Illinois USA

Poured black with a dark brown, thick head. The nose is bourbon, dark chocolate, vanilla, and oak. The taste is similar with roasted barley and malt. The palate is oily and SO thick and chewy, oily as well. This is the best imperial stout I’ve had!

Black with a large-bubble head that settles quickly into three distinct islands (no kidding) and an edge of foam. Aroma resembles Jack Daniels lite. Flavor starts with malt and caramel, then progresses to bourbon, enough to mask most of the beer flavor. Decent body, very smooth for a bourbon brew. A slight toning down of the bourbon aspect would go over well, although this is an otherwise tasty beer.

Bottle in Brooklyn. Pitch black body with slightest and oily head. Dark chocolate nose with caramel and malts. Really filling and nice taste. Again, lots of chocolate, malts and dark fruits. A real delight and worth searching out.

Bouteille de 660ml. Bière d’un noir dense et profond surmontée d’une épaisse mousse caramel qui disparaît en une minute environ, en faisant un bruit intense de pétillement. Elle dévoile un nez très puissant et complexe avec notamment des arômes de chocolat, de vanille, fruits confits, raisins secs, caramel, bois, bourbon, malt torréfié, alcohol et des notes de fumée. En bouche, on note encore une fois chocolat, vanille, fruits confits, raisins secs, bois, bourbon, malt torréfié, fumé et alcool. En réchauffant, elle se transforme en pannetone, avec caramel dulce de leche, cannelle, cognac et alcool. Elle est très ronde en bouche avec une texture plutôt sirupeuse et visqueuse qui contribue à préserver très longtemps toutes les saveurs en bouche. Avec le temps, il est de plus en plus rare qu’une bière m’impressionne, mais celle-ci est tout simplement phénoménale et d’une complexité exceptionnelle. Une bière d’hiver fort réconfortante et enivrante!

Wow, something finally good coming out of illinois. Pours a deep 10-40w. Very nice bourbon aroma. From someone who loves bourbon this excells. Sweet chocolate notes abound also in the aroma. huge alcohol presense but it dies down over a period of time on the palate. A great sipping beer, hopefully i can find a great madero cigar to go with it. Thanks sun devil liquor.

Yowza! Tap at Churchkey DC. Pours inky black with a thin dark brown head. Huge aroma of vanilla, also some chocolate, malt, and oak. The flavor is all of that - with the emphasis on vanilla - plus caramel, roasted barley, a touch of bourbon, and a little burn from the alcohol. Aged a couple years this will be perfection.

12oz. Bottled on 10/02/09. Appropriately viscous black pour with no trace of head or bubbles to speak of. You can honestly get a whiff of this thing from a couple feet away. Gigantic Bourbon nose hits like a sledgehammer. If you keep your nose down and get past the fact that it smells more like whiskey than beer, you’ll get hints of vanilla, burnt oak and caramel. Not sure that I can adequately describe the flavor, has a bit of everything I would expect in a near perfect stout. Huge malt flavor with roasted grain, cocoa, black licorice, oak, vanilla and caramel. A subtle Bourbon flavor hits right at the beginning. Can’t imagine how they could improve on the palate, sits just right on the tongue with a thick texture that supports the malt, but isn’t overly syrupy. Slight hit of bitterness at the end and almost no trace of alcohol throughout. Very impressive for a 13% beer that was just bottled two months ago. If you can find this one, make sure you pick some up. Simply amazing!