Small Batch #02: 2 Year Wheatwine
Goose Island Beer Co.

 

500 ml bottle into a snifter. Best by 2/17/24, had 6/25/24.

Pours a copper color, mostly clear, with a brief head and sparse foamy lacing. Aromas of caramel, bourbon, fig, malt, oak, light tobacco and raisin. The flavors follow the nose: bourbon, caramel, fig, malt, light oak, light raisin. Smooth, an excellent medium body, appropriately carbonated.

Has a strong barrel presence, but it also has a delicate quality. Focused and distinct aromas and flavors. Delicious.

Poured at fridge temp. Pours very dark brown, with little head. The nose is phenomenal. Lots of bourbon barrel, tons of sweet toffee, slight molasses, plums, and raisins. Just lovely.

The taste is big and bold. Sticky toffee screams out from this one! Definitely some strong bourbon notes - vanilla and some oak. Molasses, raisins, honey, figs, and a hint of port. This is just so rich and flavorful. Might be the best wheatwine that I have tried. Not overly sweet, which has happened a few times with wheatwines for me.

The mouthfeel is medium bodied, but nice and sticky and chewy. The aftertaste is full of sweet toffee. The ABV is not noticeable at all. Dangerous!

Like the others I've had from this series, this is BIG. It's loud. It's frankly obnoxious. I love it. Call it wheatwine to mosh to.

Massive caramel and toffee absolutely dominate. There is also plenty of honey and vanilla plus hints of raisin, butterscotch, and sweet bread. The body satisfyingly full with gentle carbonation This is just a lot of fun to drink. The world needs more wheatwine.

Bottle purchased and drank at the Goose Island Fulton Taproom in Chicago, IL.

This one smells like boozy honey, vanilla, caramel, oak spice, stone fruit, and toffee.

I always really liked the regular Bourbon County Brand Wheatwine, and this is a nice barrel-heavy update to it. There’s more bourbon, which gives more honey and caramel to the beer, along with some dried apricot, toffee, and breadiness, with a sort of creamy vanilla and wheat feel on the back end.

This is boozy, but not overly so, with a nice drinkability to it, slow sipping, but enjoyable.

I’m definitely intrigued by some of the small batch beers coming out the Fulton Taproom lately – even after all these years I still want any and all Goose Island barrel projects.

Sampling this 1 pt 8fl oz bottle at cellar temp and poured into my snifter. Bottle is date stamped best beforeBeer is courtesy of @fbarber . thank you!
The beer pours a rich, clear mahogany color with some garnet highlighting when held up to a light source.
A minimal dense fizzy beige head foams up about 1 cm and fades fairly quickly to nothing.
Aroma is toffee, caramel, a lot of brown sugar and some bourbon and dark fruit. The dark fruit is fig and raisin. No hops and only a little bit of boozy fusol warmth on the nose. No real hop character anywhere.
First sip reveals a medium to big body with slightly sticky and syrupy texture. A little coating on my lips and palate each mouthful. I get very minimal carbonation, almost nothing to be honest.
Flavor is toffee and brown sugar and booze soaked raisins and figs mixing with a little bourbon and some fusol warmth. The warmth doesnt linger nor burn my throat, and there are no hop characters that I detect either.
This is a great malt forward wheatwine with just enough bourbon notes to remind you it is barrel aged and also only gives hints of the booziness that lies in the bottle.
Very glad to have tried this one and would certainly drink this tasty brew again!

2022 release
Consumed 4/30/22

For some reason this beer and their small batch releases make me think of the ABiBev takeover of Goose. The hope was that they would leave them alone enough so that they could continue to make the beers that beer nerds loved with the extra cash they could bring while still doing well with their other crap beers. Well, seeing that the Fulton location is putting out beers like that, I'm more convinced than ever that it has all worked out. BCS is still great and we get treats like that from the brewery. It doesn't look particularly appealing to me. It's dark and thin with remaining carbonation after the pour. There's not a lot on the nose either. But drinking it, I get so much wonderful toffee and caramel that I'm loving it. I can't remember a beer that had flavors that lasted so long on the pallet. I need to go back to the wheat wines from previous years now. A great treat and I hope they continue producing these (as they seem to be doing.)

"Drink by 2/17/24"; drank 3/8/22 @ the Yarchives.

Semi-opaque brown/orange appearance.

An even pour yielded a tiny tan head which quickly dissipated; no lace.

Caramel, oak & bourbon notes in the nose.

Thick, sticky mouthfeel.

Caramel & strong bourbon heat flavors up front; oak notes on the finish.

Boozy, straight-forward and pretty good. Could probably stand a bit of oxidization, honestly...it's too blunt an instrument, if anything.