Goose Island's release of Bourbon County Brand Stout is always one of the top beer highlights of the year (I wrote thoroughly about this last November). But even bigger than the release is the speculation, with beer geeks taking to message boards trying to predict what the even rarer variant releases will be for the season.

"When we, the brewers, come up with the new variants each year," Mike Siegel, Goose Island's Brewery Innovations Manager told me, "a) we want to be excited and b) we want to get the people excited."

I think "the people" will be very excited when they hear what will comprise this November's astonishing six releases. In addition to the regular yearly batches of Bourbon County Brand Stout, Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout (this year produced with Intelligentsia Nicaraguan "Los Delirios" beans), and Bourbon County Brand Barleywine, three variants will make their first ever appearances:

Regal Rye Bourbon County Brand Stout

Goose Island

This nationally-released variant adds the base beer to Heaven Hill and Jim Beam rye whiskey barrels which are then blended together. Fresh, tart cherries from Michigan were added to the barrel for a few months, while Yakima Valley "single-strength" blackberry juice and Luxardo candied cherries were blended in afterward using a stainless steel infusion vessel. Uniquely, a touch of sea salt was added at the end. "It props the flavors up and rounds out the tartness," Siegel told me.

Proprietor's Bourbon County Brand Stout (2015)

Goose Island

This Chicagoland-only special release adds the base beer to bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup barrels sourced from Sugar Chalet in Ohio. A local culinary school helped the brewers roast 1000 pounds of raw pecans which were then added to the beer along with guajillo peppers just to give some moderate heat to the back-end. "Don't worry, it won't be face-melting," Siegel notes.

Rare Bourbon County Brand Stout (2015)

Goose Island

As Siegel told me, "This beer is a story that goes back two years ago. Our barrel broker came to us with this windfall of 33- to 35-year-old Heaven Hill bourbon barrels which had been more or less lost in one their warehouses. Did we want them? YES!" The base beer was added to these barrels and will come out in the next month or so, at just about the two-year mark. Because of the barrels' age, this most limited variant will have tons of extra oak character. "You just don't come across barrels like these."

If you're a longtime Bourbon County nut like me, you might have always wondered how Goose Island decides on its new variants each year. It's perhaps, surprisingly, a little more casual than you'd probably expect.

"We simply make tabletop versions of the beer," Siegel explains. "Each of our brewers is given a liter of the base beer to take home and play around with using whatever ingredients they want." This year saw some forty to fifty trial beers that a panel of brewers sampled before whittling them down to their biggest favorites.

Long desired by internet beer geeks, Siegel tells me that this year quite a few maple syrup variants were created by various brew team members. Still, the favorite ended up being the Proprietor's recipe above conceived by Di Rodriguez, a Goose Island employee who based it on your classic holiday pecan pies.

But the variants aren't the only surprises in store. Of note, slightly more Bourbon County Brand Stout (about 10% more) will enter the marketplace this year. Overall, though, the total barrel amounts stayed about the same as last year, with some 4500 whiskey casks getting filled last July.

Packaging and format size is changing too. The old 12- and 22-ounce bottles (as well as four-packs) have been scrapped in favor of a uniform 16.9-ounce format across the board. The bottles themselves have also been upgraded to a custom-made vessel that Goose Island has been designing for over a year, one which necessitated completely upgrading their bottling line. This stunning bottle is unlike anything I've seen in the industry, with embossed lettering on the glass instead of a typical front label, and the necessary labeling moved to the neck and back.

"We take Bourbon County incredibly seriously," Siegel tells me. "There's probably not a single decision made at the brewery for the entire year that we spend more time on, trying to get right by our standards."

As usual, all the beers will be released to the thirsty hoards on Black Friday, November 27th. There's probably already some bearded dude sleeping in front of your local liquor store waiting…

Aaron Goldfarb Aaron Goldfarb lives in Brooklyn and is a novelist and the author of 'Hacking Whiskey.'

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