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Bourbon County Stout beers: Exclusive preview tasting
A popular yearly tradition
Bourbon County Brand Stout has grown into a family of beers with a devoted following. Here, beer fans line up for a release of BCS Coffee in 2012. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune)
By Josh Noel,
Chicago Tribune
Sitting down for the first taste of this year's Goose Island BCS beers
What you can expect from BCS beers this fall.
When it came time to brew its 1,000th batch of beer 22 years ago, the Goose Island brewpub on Clybourn Avenue wanted to do something special. So then-brewmaster Greg Hall made the darkest, booziest stout he could and let it sit in a bourbon barrel — a relatively rare practice at the time. He named the beer Bourbon County Stout and nervously trotted it out for his customers.
BCS, as drinkers came to call it, has traveled an unlikely path since those early days, both literally (the beer is now available in all 50 states) and figuratively (as of this writing, seven of the world's top 20 beers hail from the BCS family, according to the industry-watching BeerGraphs website).
Since 1992, BCS has grown from a single beer to a family of brews, each weighty, boozy and aged in whiskey barrels. Goose is releasing five BCS beers this year, all, as usual, on the day after Thanksgiving. It is one of the biggest single beer release days in Chicago for a few reasons: the scarcity of BCS, the fact that it is an appealing trade chip among beer collectors, and the fact that the beer is worth aging because it changes in the bottle.
This week, I sat down with Brett Porter, Goose Island brewmaster, and Mike Siegel, manager of innovation, to taste and discuss this year's crop: classic BCS; a barleywine; BCS with vanilla, aged in rye whiskey barrels; Proprietor's BCS (essentially a chocolate-cinnamon version); and BCS with coffee.
Bourbon County Barleywine
Introduced last year, Bourbon County Brand Barleywine Ale returns and will continue to be an annual Black Friday release.
"People like it," Porter said. "We like it. It's fun beer to make. We want to add a layer of complexity to an English-style barleywine."
That's where the barrel — a former bourbon barrel that later housed BCS — comes in, adding notes of char, bourbon and just a whisper of stout to the barleywine.
This year's barleywine is immensely smooth and round, taking the drinker on a lightly syrupy journey through some decadent flavors: toffee, caramel and vanilla. While true of all BCS beers, the barleywine is an ideal winter sipper. Preferably beside a fire. After a day of skiing. On a bearskin rug. (Actually, make that a mock bearskin rug.)
Porter, Siegel and I shared a bottle alongside last year's version. The 2014 barleywine was a bit darker and, I thought, preferable for both its prolonged, varied sweetness and how well it hid its 12.1 percent alcohol. It's a smooth and beautiful ride.
Siegel agreed: "The first sip of last year's is a lot of burnt sugar that rises to a peak, then quickly comes back down. The sweetness on this year's is drawn out. I like that."
Porter declined to pick a favorite.
Barleywine
Goose Island is releasing Bourbon County Barleywine for the second year. It will continue to be an annual release.
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Vanilla Rye
Goose Island Brewery
Bourbon County Vanilla Rye is Goose Island's first vanilla BCS since 2010.
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The original
Goose Island Brewery
Bourbon County Stout was first brewed at Goose Island's Clybourn brewpub in 1992.
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Coffee
Goose Island Brewery
Bourbon County Coffee is a long-time annual release and one of Goose Island's most popular.
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Proprietor's
Goose Island Brewery
Bourbon County Proprietor's is a Chicago-only release with ingredients that change every year.
"One isn't better than the other, but people are going to have a lot of fun comparing them," he said. "I'd happily drink either one."
Available nationally in four-packs of 12-ounce bottles.
Bourbon County Stout
As much as we tend to think of the original Bourbon County Stout as a fixed recipe that is released every year, that's not quite the case.
"There's variation from year to year, and there isn't any way around it," Porter said. "I don't think it's a bad thing."
Though Goose aims to reproduce the same base beer every year, a number of factors vary what winds up in bottles.
"There's the weather in Chicago (while the beer is aging in bourbon barrels), the mix of distiller barrels we use and the barrel manufacturers themselves," Porter said. "We don't have a lot of control over the final product in some ways."
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But in other ways they do, and that's where Siegel comes in. His job is to blend the thousands of barrels into a final product. But even the final product varies; BCS was bottled this year on six different dates, leading to even greater variation.
Siegel said tasting straight out of the barrels reveals two general characteristics of Bourbon County Stout: one is boozy and warming, and takes on berry notes; the other features a smoother, more caramel-like roast.
"For me the ideal BCS has all the different layers of flavor," Porter said. "Cherry, vanilla, roast, coffee, chocolate — all the layers of flavor in the blend. That is my goal as the brewmaster: infinite complexity."
As for the bottle of 2014 BCS we cracked open, I don't know that it was infinitely complex, but, oh, lord, was it tasty. I find BCS hit and miss — the misses have come when it's too hot with alcohol, and lacking the balance that Porter described — but always interesting.
The version we tried, bottled on Sept. 14 (the date is printed on the back label), was missing some of the boozy-cherry notes, but I didn't miss them. It was instead among the most ready-to-drink BCS beers I've tasted: silky, free of alcohol burn and loaded with vanilla. Siegel called it "a locomotive of vanilla."
Some people might miss the boozy burn, but not me. Porter didn't either.
"What I don't like about BCS is the witch hazel and hot alcohol burn," he said. "I like what it does to me, and the feeling, but I don't like the flavor. I don't get that flavor out of this bottle."
I brought along a bottle of 2012 BCS to compare and it was a wholly different experience, popping with the very cherry-heavy, boozy edge missing in the 2014 bottle. But it had obviously mellowed during the past two years. This is why people age BCS.
"It's a beautiful flavor," Porter said. "It's an '1812 Overture' of flavor in your mouth."
Delicious indeed, and it underscored how great the variation can be in Bourbon County Stout from year to year and bottle to bottle.
Available nationally in four-packs of 12-ounce bottles.
Proprietor's BCS
Goose released its first Proprietor's BCS last year; the featured ingredient was coconut. Fresh from the bottle, it was a magnificent swirl of coconut, chocolate and booze. Absolute decadence, and, in relative scarcity, one of the brewery's most sought-after beers.
This year's version is equally memorable — and will be equally hard to come by — with an ingredient lineup so wide that Siegel joked it should be called "BCS Massive Carbon Footprint" — cassia bark from Vietnam, cocoa nibs from Congo, coconut water from Thailand and Mexican panela sugar.
The base beer is a tweaked version of Bourbon County Stout, brewed with the addition of rye. The initial idea was a cassia bark (cinnamon, essentially) and cocoa nib BCS aged in rye whiskey barrels. But the result was slightly astringent, leading Goose to make a syrup of coconut water and Mexican sugar that was added as a final step.
The syrup is "not a huge component" of the finished product, Siegel said: "It's meant to add a little sweetness and flavor along the way."
I barely recognized the coconut or Mexican sugar, but the syrup is quite apparent, which makes the beer relatively sweet — possibly too cloying for some. But not me. Proprietor's bursts with cinnamon to balance the sweet, then releases into a wonderfully long spicy chocolate finish. It's an admirable balance of sweet (syrup), spicy (cocoa nibs) and savory (cinnamon).
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"Someone at the brewery said it reminded them of Mexican hot chocolate," Siegel said.
Yes. Exactly.
"We didn't want a spiced BCS," Porter said. "We wanted a beer that accentuated the flavors already in BCS."
Like last year, Proprietor's will be available only in Chicago, a tradition that Porter said will continue as a thank you to the city.
"We are in the spot we are because of the people in Chicago who have bought our beer," he said.
(And, let's be honest — it's a smart way for Goose to burnish its Chicago credibility since being sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2011.)
Because availability will be limited, if you get your hands on one bottle, my suggestion is to drink it fresh; it's difficult to imagine the beer getting much better. If you get two, try one fresh and store one (at room temperature, in the dark) for four to six months. And if you get three, give one to me.
Available in Chicago in 22-ounce bottles.
BCS Coffee
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Another annual release, but with a different coffee every year that's procured by Intelligentsia. This year's is a Rwandan bean called Zirikana.
I'm going to be honest. We were at the end of the tasting, and my note-taking got a little lazy. Rather than fake my way through, I'll just convey exactly what I wrote:
"No acidity — nice."
"Chocolate, coffee."
"Boozy, delicious iced coffee."
"Coffee. Yum."
"Brett says there's maple in there. Yes."
So there you have it. This year's BCS Coffee features a low-acidity bean, lots of aromatic coffee punch and very light maple notes (though there is no maple added to the beer). Come to think of it, there was also a light touch of berry flavor at the beer's edges. Porter says it's his favorite version of the beer yet.
Available nationally in four-packs of 12-ounce bottles.
Vanilla Rye
Wait — "Where's Vanilla Rye?" you might ask. I certainly did when I realized it wasn't on the table.
"Not ready yet," Siegel said.
Goose Island released a Vanilla BCS in 2010, and it became one of the most storied and sought-after beers in the brewery's history. Goose is rolling out a new version this year aged in rye, not bourbon, barrels.
I'll return to the brewery in a couple of weeks to try it and will let you know how it goes. I have a feeling it will go quite well.
jbnoel@tribune.com
Twitter @joshbnoel
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