Goose Island Bourbon County 2019

That is what you consider a valiant effort?

I actually am a big EC fan but a double barrel stout with the two barrels being 1 year differences of the same bourbon is uninspired at best.

 

Thirsty Dog Barrel Aged Siberian Night is the closest BA stout to BCBS that I have found so far. It's between $6 and $7 for a 12oz bottle in this neck of the woods. Not exactly cheap, but it's available year round, and it's a damn good stout. So far, it's the only one that has the dark fruit character and luscious body that compares to BCBS. Probably something better somewhere out there, but BA Siberian Night will not disappoint.

 

Fuck yeah!

If you ever find yourself in Ohio, near a Thirsty Dog location in particular, BA Siberian with Bent Tree coffee on draft is incredible!

 

Damn, someone actually knows it. I constantly recommended BA Siberian Night to people, and i think you're only the second person to,recognise it. Highly underrated beer, in my opinion.

If you ever find me in Ohio... Ask me "why?".

Just kidding. Ohio's cool.

 

All sarcasm my man. Twas not a valiant effort, just more words to make the beer seem interesting. They couldn't even get two different types of Bourbon. It almost seems like they got a different years barrel by accident and made it sound on purpose lol

 

If I recall correctly, the ABV is around 11%. Maybe the regular Siberian Night is <10%, but the barrel aged version is definitely above 10. I'll have to revisit it again, but I distinctly remember calling it a budget Bourbon County in my review. All subjective in the long run I suppose. Still a great stout.

 

No worries at all. The bottles are nearly identical, save the gold foil on the neck of the BA version. Definitely worth trying if you ever stumble across it. No apologies necessary. Cheers!

 

100% dude

 

Yeah I just drank a 2015 last week and even with the age it was way better than the recent vintages.

 

https://tenemu.com/news/goose-islan...etors-bourbon-county-brand-stout-2019/07/2019

 

I recently had a 2015 and a 2017 and I thought the 2017 was much better, more chocolate, more bourbony. YMMV

 

The vanilla/coconut/pecan/cacao Prop sounds great, but it will be tough to beat 2018 Prop "chocolate bomb"

As for the others I'm calling BS on;

• Oyster Stout - I'd try it but many wouldn't, so BS
  
• Dry-hopped Stout - too trendy and pointless
  
• Wheatwine - incredible in 2018 but why would they repeat again so soon?
• Either 2-year Reserve or Rye Reserve will happen, but not both

 

I've said it before but I'll say it again, this is a legit established stout style that goes back a long time and is great. Maybe it's only present on the coasts (although I do know that Great lakes brewing made one for their 30th anniversary in 2018) but it is a great style of stout that doesn't taste like seafood. I always tell people to think about how you add a bit of salt to chocolate cake or cookies when baking, it's like that. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this was a variant they went with. To all the doubters, seek one out and try it, oyster stouts are totally tits. They work really well with cacao nibs.

As to the 2015, one of my local shops has a few bottles on the shelf, I think they want like 20$ for it so I'm not really that interested, but I am curious given that some folks seem to really like that vintage at this age. Could it possibly be worth it? They also have Jackie O's bourbon barrel stout at like 16$, is that a better use of funds?

 

Curious. Why would they file for the labels if they didn't intend to use them?

 

Oyster Stout may be incredible, but the name alone will keep a lot of folks from trying it.

I thought the BCBS 2015 had lost its boldness. It wasn't bad, just not as good as it was fresh or as good as aged 2017. I recently had the opportunity to buy Abyss 2012 through 2018, so I tried the 2012. It had started to taste like cardboard, so a bad choice. I should go back and get the 2015 or 2016. As far as the Jackie O's - couldn't tell you, never had that, but looks good.

 

The article mentioned that they did that last year, perhaps as a decoy since they know so many are watching it and speculating. Then the official lineup announcement makes a bigger splash. The image they released last year of the lineup in the barrel-room is my Windows wallpaper. That led me to pursuing and trying all of them, though I never got ahold of the Barleywine. I may replace my wallpaper if they come up with a better picture this year.

 

That's what people keep saying but it's a well established style and a quick search for 'oyster stout' on this site produces 192 results, 125 of them if you 'exclude retired beers'. I guess it's not as well known away from the coasts (makes sense, you need oysters to make them) but it's not a novelty or experimental style and I think that adding the name recognition of Goose Island would bring in many more people who might be a bit leery of the name

 

@Beer_Stan

I agree it's a bit pointless to designate 11yr "then" 12yr but there are plenty of double barrel beers (Black Tuesday Reserve for example) that are bourbon -> bourbon. There's also rye whiskies and bourbon that go into the required new barrels, then new barrels again (Knob Creek twice barreled rye and Woodford double oaked do this) as well as in Scotch and Irish where they throw fill american oak hogsheads (reused american oak bourbon barrels that are made bigger) then dump into another new first refill bourbon barrel during the aging (Jameson 18yr).

GI probably just think the 'new' bourbon drinkers who still like craft beer, might get excited to see year designations on the barrels used. I like bourbon, but based on the char level or refill bourbon barrels, even if you get better or worse results using xxx bourbon barrel one year vs yyy bourbon barrel another year, it won't be repeatable. All bourbon doesn't taste exactly the same, but by and large the overall profile is pretty close brand to brand and label to label.

There's plenty of stuff to rag on GI for, but doing a 2x Heaven Hill/ Elijah Craig double barrel, is not one of them.