You guys know that the Bourbon County episode is our most listened to, one of our most listened to episodes every year, right? Yep. What? So, we're gonna start this episode with an Easter egg. And by Easter, I mean Christmas, and by egg, I mean beer. Oh. Yeah. They didn't have any of this, and Roger insisted that I would like it, so we are trying Goose Island Christmas IPA. Tis the season. Absolutely. With a new rebrand. Yeah. This cute little ornament. It's better than their IPA rebrand. It's the, you just got Goose thumb weird thing. Very weird. Very weird Goose thrompromorphic thumb. People apparently are digging it because they've been selling- Goose thrompromorphic. I don't know why. Why would they do that? I'm a missing Goose. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. You're a missing Thrope of Geese. Yes. I got it. I'm picking up what you're laying down. Missing Goose Thrope. All right. They were talking about this Christmas beer and Roger kept throwing an elbow into my side, like, yeah, you're going to like this. Yeah. You're like, we need to go. I'm like, you want to hear about this beer. They have it at lincoln Wood, so I grabbed it. Let's try it. It smells appropriately old school. It is Christmas IPA. It's a little spicy, but mostly it's an IPA. And for as much as everyone always thinks of Christmas beers as these spicy, malty, you know, like warming a brown ale base kind of. Yeah, that's the image. Maybe a little sweet. They have much more heritage in hoppy beers. Between Sierra Nevada Celebration and Anchor Christmas Ale, they're hoppy. I mean, it's more of, you know, a let's make a beer that has a nice balance between malt sweetness and it can stand up to a generous helping of West Coast hops. What did they say the hops are here? I mean, this is Cascade, right? Chinook. Chinook? Chinook was the first one he mentioned, which again is very seasonally appropriate. You think of pine and that's one of the most classic descriptors for Chinook. And of all the piney hops, it's one of the ones that always comes to mind. I think Mike said something, some kind of orange, like spiced orange or something like that, hanging on a Christmas tree. That's what he said, yes. And that's not far off. No, I agree. It's like the orange that you pull out of the bottle of mold spices or mold spice mix, you know? Everybody's looking for, well, not everybody, but I mean people that are curious. Everybody. When we talk about IPAs as of late, my joke was always, oh, you like IPA, what kind? And the default answer was hazy is like juicy, like hazy. But there have been like weird rifts. We saw milkshakes come and go. Brute IPA had 10 minutes of fame. Cold IPA was a thing for a hot minute. But I still don't even know if it's literally a thing. Cold IPA for a hot minute. It's IPL, but nobody could handle that. Thank you. IPL has failed 25 years ago, so we can't use the term anymore, even though it takes one minute to explain IPL and 10 to explain cold IPA. Dude, it's an acronym. It's not that hard to solve. When my dad was 30, those were terrible, so we could never brew him again. All right. You know what? Enough filibustering. People didn't cite to this episode for this. People are looking for West Coast IPA. If you're looking for a classic West Coast IPA, as in one that has some malt character and hop character, exactly, this is a classic West Coast style IPA. Balanced bitterness and body from big malt. Yes. It's not overblown. It's still really drinkable. It's very drinkable. It's very attenuated. It's light on its feet. It's not particularly caramelly, but it's not lean either. All true. All right. Ready? Enough filibustering. We are going to play a very short burst of intro music and get right into this year's Bourbon County Branstout lineup. Is it from the soundtrack of Mr. Smith Goes to Goose Island? I don't know. Let's find out, Jim. And we're back. You are listening to Barrel to Bottle, the Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg. I do communications at Binny's, and we went to Goose Island today. You guys were there. I was there. I'm Chris. I do stuff, and I drink some Goose Island stuff. And I'm Roger, I do beer, and it is stout season, and we're excited once again to walk through this entire Bourbon County lineup. How do you want to structure this? Where do you want to go first? I think we should taste them in the order that they had us try them. I think it makes the most sense. It starts with the OG, followed by Barrel finished variants, and then we get into the adjuncted stuff with all the different interesting additions. And then we wrap it up with our 60,000 foot view of the program of Bourbon County Stout today. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Then let's dive right in with the OGs. So starting off is Goose Island Original. Don't call it regular. I don't like that. I mean, it is. There's nothing regular about it. They don't have, it's just called BCBS. They don't really have a brand for it outside of the base of everything else. Well, they're really pushing original. And the one thing I will say is that it is the base for everything else, especially in this year's lineup. Like every once in a while, there's an outlier BCBS that used a little bit of some other kind of stout or a different stout altogether as the base. But, you know, it's worth mentioning that all these amazing beers utilize this, the OG base. And I think no recent year more so than this one is that on display. Totally. Agreed. We'll get into that when we get into all the variants, but yeah. So in previous years, they've done multiple batches. We've had some shenanigans, including last year's very easily identifiable barrel coating on the back of their bottles. Very, people very quickly solved that one. Yeah, but I mean, you want them to. Was that years ago? I think you're thinking of the one two years ago, because that was on the 16.9 bottles. Last year, the only single distillery expressions were in the four packs. Four packs, and they were single four pack. You had to drive across the state of Missouri to get all these different variants. It's well intentioned, but kind of a mess because of the way it ends up getting distributed. It'd be like, and this can be very frustrating. So for all your listeners to clear all this up, once again, a store would get one shipment of everything that was the same. It wasn't like, here's a case of Heaven Hill and here's a case of Will It. They might not have gotten any of the single expressions. It's one of those things where it could just be, nope, didn't go to this account period. Hopefully, moving forward, there's less of this Easter egg hunt and more of just single distillery expressions. So that said, guess what? One thing you can do, and this was the first time I've heard them kind of emphasize this and bring this up. Specifically address this, right? Yeah. So there's so much original being bottled that they can't do it all at once. So when they're batching this, they're pulling from a mixture of Heaven Hill, Wild Turkey, Buffalo Trace and Four Roses. Barrels. And this is the second year with Four Roses in the mix there. So Four Roses is a pretty new element to the lineup. There's no set in stone proportion of what we use 25% of each. Even if there was, they go by taste. They're trying to hit a specific blend. But still, so it's every time that they do a batch, it's a different amalgamation of those barrels from different distilleries, from different ages. The only parameters is that they quantify that it has to be at least a four-year-old bourbon as far as the cask goes. They mention every once in a while, they get some that are much older. They might have a barrel of 12-year-old bourbon. But the minimum age is four. I think they're saying the majority of it is four to six years. What ends up happening is essentially a total mixture of those four distilleries, bourbons of different ages, age for around about 12 months worth, like eight to 12 months in barrel. Depending on what your code is on the back of your original, you're going to be able to suss out some subtle differences. There's also going to be different ABV. They said with these two main things, they have one that they settled at 14.1 percent and one at 14.6. 14.6. Those are just the two that they pulled. There are other batches that we didn't try. Yeah. They said there were 13. Thirteen batches? Okay, completists, do you feel that itch? Do you need to try all of the different batches? You should try a couple of different batches. If you get the chance, head to a second Binny's and see if they got a different batch because we did try two. Yeah. They were distinctly different though they were both distinctly Bourbon County. Yeah, for sure. Right. I will say, and this is why it can be important as far as what order you try things in, if you're trying like prop and then trying to suss out the subtle differences between two batches of original, that might be tough. But if your palate is fresh, you're starting it out, I very much could tell the difference between the two. Very much. I asked them, what did you measure the specific sugar content of these two? They said they did, but they didn't know the numbers. Then Quinn texted somebody and then they got an answer. They did have a notably different amount of sugar. The one that is fermented higher elk had less sugar. I think that that totally makes sense based on what we tried. That one tended to be a little leaner and more spicy. It was. The one that's slightly lower in alcohol has less fermented sugar and it's a little broader. It's not just the perception of sweetness through things like flavor notes like chocolate that's contributing to the sense of sweetness, it's also a smidge more sugar. Let's talk about the two that we tried. We tried the one at 14.1 percent, and I did not note the bottling date on that one, nor the other. The other was bottled at 14.6 percent. They also, by the way, said that in the past, they have had multiple bottling batches at the same alcohol. They said that a whole vintage, one year, all of the different batches came in at exactly the same alcohol, which is a cosmic coincidence. Here we have these two different bottlings. All right, so let's start with the 14.1. The 14.1 to me, I got tons of soft drink flavors from it and aromas, so root beer and cola and cherry cola. Definitely. On both the nose and the palate and to some degree, the finish as well, which all you haters on the cola one will probably not want to hear that, but I think we now know, here's a great example of how that one maybe came to be is that this beer can Yeah, for sure. I picked up on a lot of sassafrasi notes in this one too. Agreed. And of course, tons of chocolate and vanilla and caramel. This one was definitely more viscous and sweeter to the palate and as opposed to the second variant for sure. I also thought, you might disagree. I mean, the barrel treatments got to be very similar in averages. I thought that these both showed barrel impact pretty prominently, but this one was more on the spice side of things, and the other one was more on the vanilla and caramel and coconut side of things. I agree. My notes were the finish on this, I have things like allspice, clove, mint, whereas the finish on the other one for me was like maple syrup, vanilla, cherry cordial. Absolutely. Again, we're splitting hairs here. We're trying to describe differences instead of the actual experience overall. But both phenomenal beers and both signature bourbon county stout. Yeah, I agree. Lots of brown spice and almost like I got a note of sandalwood incense. Mint for sure. Yeah, I'm all about the 14.6 one that we tried also. More coffee, more roasty, darker, richer chocolate. And I am a sucker for big obvious things. And this is just a smidge dialed up on the hedonism. Yeah, not necessarily the- Not the body. Not the sweetness either. But something I was thinking about that we don't necessarily talk about when we do these is placing Bourbon County in the context of barrel-age stouts. And I don't just mean, oh, you know, it's big, it's long parentage and, you know, and its influence over the industry. We've dealt with these trends and maybe this is very fresh in mind because we were just at Fobab. But there's really been a bent towards pastry stouts, which you would never use any kind of term like balance with those. And it's all about like going over the top and everything being dessert like. And Roger, do you remember the one where the guy was like, oh yeah, it has golden crumbs and cocoa nibs and pieces of licorice. And I think it has some Cheerios, but the kind of and we're like, are you describing flavors or do they put that in there? Is that what you're telling us? So I think that there's a savory side to these two that is even though that the sweet chocolatey notes seem to play the lead role, there's like level of porcini mushroom, some earthier notes that are underlying kind of umami, those oxidative umami notes that start to come in. Yeah. They're like just a little bit more serious. Right. Like a little bit more grown up. And I think we'd be remiss if we didn't say there is a little hot bite on the finish of these two. There's some bitterness that keeps these things in line. I don't think a lot of people will perceive it because they'll be overwhelmed with the plushness. But yeah, you're right. That's what keeps it in balance. They would never even necessarily be able to think that and maybe they wouldn't necessarily articulate some of the umami note or the bitterness, but because it's integrated and it's not rearing its head, it's something that's there. I think at the end of the day, a lot of people have a problem with this word, but because it gets associated with like macro beer, but the drinkability of Bourbon County is something that sets it apart. It's this giant indulgent beer, but it's not syrupy. There's so many stouts these days that are just over the top. They're fun to drink an ounce of and see like, wow, this is very candy-like or very pastry-esque. There's a balance here that makes them drinkable for more than just an ounce. Yeah, I think they were really hammering home this balance message. I honestly couldn't agree more. These are layered beers with some degree of subtlety to them. They are not necessarily pounding you over the head with a ridiculous amount of sugar or. Although, in the entire world of beer, they are pounding you over the head. Of course. That's what's funny. They are still massively decadent. I have notes like cherry cordial candy, fudge. Fudge is still very prominent flavor profile in this. But that having been said, it's not like drinking chocolate syrup, which there were several beers at Fobab where I'm like, this is like drinking syrup. Yeah. I mean, there's nuance here. I even get almost floral top notes like almond extract or almond blossom. In the first one, I thought not just coconut, but young soft coconut. What? I like the green one. Yeah. I have no idea what you're trying to say. Yeah. Yeah. What is coconut fruit? So you've seen that when people go on vacation, they're holding the green coconut and it has basically the consistency of jelly in the inside. Yeah. It's the thing. How much of life have I missed? Most. They're not too common here. Usually, I get them if you're in a tropical area where they're growing coconuts. All right. It's actually a genetic deformality and they're like planting specific trees to... Anyway, the flesh is soft rather than hard and great. But the ones that are really jelly-like inside is some sort of genetic thing. Stop. It's weird. Anyway, OG is awesome. They're awesome, as for usual. Check out the ABVs. Make sure you pick up at least a 14.1 and a 14.6. That's what we tried. We tried a bunch. We didn't try. But they're all amazing. Yeah. I'm going to have to try a bunch of others. Goose is not saying if they're doing any Easter eggs this year, but I have a feeling they probably are. Do you think they did something they didn't tell us? Probably. I did ask him if there was some horseshit code that we could figure out instantly. He kind of like averted his eyes. They didn't let us see any bottles. I mean, that's saying something. We're not being cagey. We don't know. Yeah. We don't know. We don't know this year. Again, we're always a little nervous with that because people get frustrated and we hear you, we get it. We got the beer we got. For what it's worth, I encourage them to do that kind of single distillery offerings but to make it very apparent and sing that song. Don't hide it. Okay. His charming is Easter egg zire. Yes. Roger gave plenty of firmly stated advice. Yes. Well, yeah. No mince words. I was like, get him out of here. That's not why the kids listen to the show though. Let's talk about variants starting with Two Year Eagle Rare. Was that okay? Is that actually what it's called? Eagle Rare Two Year Reserve Stout, yeah. Well, I'm not saying I can't hold my breath that long. That voice. Anyone who's listened to the podcast before, we're huge proponents of when you have an expressive special barrel, you really want that to come through. We have this long-standing collaborative barrel aging process where we do just that and highlight it. So we're always excited when Goose hammers that home and they've remained committed to leaving some of the Bourbon County's unadjuncted and just letting the quality of the cooperage tell the story. That's the issue here where these feature Eagle Rare, of course, beloved, hard to find. Its name is very appropriate these days. Ten-year-old single barrel offering from Buffalo Trace. So this spent two years in barrel. The key thing here is those two years in barrel. Like it's oxidizing in barrel, it's changing as a stout. So you have both the quality of the barrel and that Eagle Rare is a phenomenal bourbon, but you also have the fact that it's a living, breathing environment, and when you age something for an extended period of time, for two years, it's going to gracefully oxidize and bring some different flavors to the four. That oxidative umami character is going to become more pronounced. Roger, is it worth pointing out that if you liked last year's Bourbon County Stout, this is one of those batches. So here's another chance. There you go. And last year's Bourbon County Stout was great. Yeah. Yeah. I loved this. I thought that being a bourbon lover or whiskey geek, on the podcast we sometimes talk about how yeast gets overlooked a lot. And I think by trying whiskeys with distillers, it's become more apparent that distilleries will have a house yeast character. I think Jack Daniels is a really great example of that with the Bazooka Joe bubble gum character. Yep. Bananas. But I always get a berry kind of- Strawberries. Strawberry. Peach kind of flavor out of Buffalo Trace. So- And that's just not Buffalo Trace. That's everything Buffalo Trace, including Eagle Rare. Yeah. It does get confusing when they have a product. When they have a product that's named after their distillery. So yes, not just Buffalo Trace, Buffalo Trace, but all the Buffalo Traces, I picked that up on- All the Buffaloes Trace? Yeah. Yes. It leaves a mark, if you will, a Buffalo Trace. Anyway, that's really geeking out on their name. Anyway, this Eagle Rare was great, and I got chocolate covered strawberry. Raisin, my notes here. Raisin and prune. Yeah. You talked about figs, almonds before. I thought that's had a specific streak of marzipan. Yeah. Agreed. There were a couple that I found marzipan in, this being one of them. I said nougat because I'm an American. We don't drink, we don't eat marzipan. Wait, I went more British than you. You did. More European. European. Yeah. Well, that is an accident. Was it formed into a tiny banana though? No, it just comes in a brick. Yeah, this was, again, they had a charcuterie platter for us, which is a nice bonus. As I always appreciate trying, especially big beers with quality meats and cheeses. This was great with some gouda. It really paired nicely in it. I wrote down fig preserves dates in the finish, and again, those are the kind of things you find on a charcuterie platter sometimes. Can I tease the next one? I thought the pairing of this one and the next one, the next Bourbon County variation that we're about to try, I thought that the comparison was very similar to the comparison of the previous two, and that this one was very good and robust and rich and showed some spice. And the next one we're about to talk about was like, dialed up flamboyant. Okay. So, I'm of course talking about Angel's Envy Cask Finish. Cask Finish Port? Yeah, they call it Cask Finish, I think because they're, this was, as surprising as this is, this was the first time that they were using some sort of unconventional cask for the Bourbon County line up. Well, I mean, they, I mean, I mean, they've used rye. I guess that doesn't count. All of them come from casks. Yeah, but they're, that seems like a really great choice. Their point being that they're very particular about Coopridge now. They're overly cautious about getting incredibly fresh barrels. They want to make sure they're very wet. It's definitely not only imparts great flavor, but it produces an environment that's more hospitable, or inhospitable for off flavors to develop. Perhaps they wanted to differentiate so they didn't have to say Bourbon Barrel aged, Barrel finished. Well, that's funny because Angel's Envy has to say that because it's not Bourbon, it's Port Barrel finished Bourbon. Of course, with this bottling, Goose Island wanted to pay tribute to what Angel's Envy is doing, and they also wanted to ape that unique style. They actually went and got from the same broker, Port Casks, so that they could age the beer in Angel's Envy Casks, and then finish some of the beer, just like Angel's Envy is a blend, finish some of the beer in fresh Port Casks. Yeah. So this is a lot, one way, one way. Also, it's not, it's just a really good beer. Yeah, but I mean, just so everyone knows, it took me a minute, maybe a good way to look at it is that all of the beer in this blend spent a year in Angel's Envy Bourbon Barrels, and then 60 percent of it finished its second year of aging in a Port Barrel. They then blended that with the 40 percent that just spent two years in Angel's Envy Bourbon Barrels. Yeah. Well done. So it's awesome. Yeah. A spectacular result, I must say. Yeah. This was worth every question mark of, oh, like how much will the Port character be too much? How long should we leave it in there? Can we leave it for the full year? What kind of percentage should we use? I mean, these are all the kind of questions that they have to ponder when they do a project like this, and I'm glad they took the chance. So, wow. What a beer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the nose just sings of red fruit from the pork finishing. I mean, it's very lively. The red fruit is a descriptor to be found in really rich, dark chocolate, and I think that it amps up the chocolate in this beer so much. Yeah. That one time they made a chocolate-favored Bourbon County Stout, and then added some more cocoa Nibs. That was a little more chocolatey than this, but this is, oh man. I agree. I mean, if you're eating really good, like 70 percent cacao and chocolate, those notes of berries are right in there. And Abuelita, the Mexican spiced hot chocolate. Yeah. The nosiness is the most complex of the bunch. It was just, there's so many things to suss out. There was a citrus element to this one that I found really alluring, like an orange peel. The red fruit was not just berry, but like current kind of, to me, it had an earthiness to it. A spice component that is kind of nutmeg-esque. It was port-like without being domineering, which I think was the big risk with this. Yeah. It's not over the top. It could have totally just been like, oh, this is like beach over the head port. So true. Very well judged. I mean, they just goes together seamlessly. And it just in the end is beautiful beer for sure. Unmistakably, Bourbon County. Yeah. Worth mentioning if you've ever enjoyed port, the port we're talking about here is Ruby Port, not Tawny. So think you look at a glass of port, Tawny, Tawny in color, oxidized, more of a sherry, Madeira flavor profile, whereas Ruby, red in color with all that dark fruit character. Cherry and raspberry. Cherries and spice. Yeah. So good. The oak really came through on this, which was in terms of spice. And in terms of tannin, I think. Yeah. Like I really think- Well, you think the tannin came from the wine? I think it's a combination. I definitely think it came from the port barrels. Yeah. And of course, port is notoriously tannic. Right. But I'm not sure where the structure is coming from, but it's there. There is tannin on the finish of this beer. You might call it a wine drinkers, Bourbon County, Brand Stout. That having been said, when people go to visit Bourbon Country and they do the tours, I would say bar none. When you walk through some of the distilleries, you see a pretty mechanized like hit a button and it starts process, which is interesting. But my favorite experience, if you do go down there, is to go into a rick house and that smell is something that is unforgettable. You're right. It's this whiskey soaked oak, not just raw oak. It's a very specific smell that's just unbelievably alluring. It's such a great smell to breathe that in. That whiskey soaked oak really came through in this. Letting the bourbon sit for two years, or letting this beer sit for two years, but also then the oak interaction in the portion that was aged in the port barrels. This is oak in the best way. Not in an overblown way, but it's prominent. Yeah. I also thought this had the most warming alcohol effect. Some of them seemed so eminently drinkable, and I'm not saying this one wasn't, but I definitely got a bit of a very mellow and kind warming sensation. It's 15.5. I'm trying to remember if I have the stats on the other ones. This is the highest one. Yeah. I think that's the highest. Spoiler alert, Roger, is this your favorite? Yes. Spoiler alert, Chris, is this your favorite? It is. All right. Spoiler alert, this is not my favorite. I really think this is amazing beer, but I think that there was another standout that set itself apart, and I went on a journey with it. I'd like to take you on that journey. To the center of your mind. Come hang out in Greg's backyard. It's time to talk about backyard. Yes. Also excellent. Backyard Stout is an homage to one of the most beloved Bourbon County's backyard rye, which is one of my favorite stories for Bourbon County. It brought into the limelight the mulberry tree or mulberry bush, which I'm sure you've walked over a sidewalk that was littered with mulberry stains. Or you saw a monkey chasing a weasel around one. That's an old-timey reference. I don't know. I've had that song stuck in my head all afternoon. Oh, is that like the Jack in the Box song or whatever? Do do do do do do. Yeah. Mulberry bushes, sometimes they're not fruit bearing, but they are all over neighborhoods. So very apropos thing for backyard rye. When they first made the original one, they were literally shaking some trees and collecting berries. So quite ambitious. They didn't go that route this time, but they did put a lot of effort into sourcing the fruit that went into this. It is a three berry blend of mulberry, boysenberry, and marianberry. So do we have to do the part where you guys explain all the berries? Yeah, we're gonna. Okay, fine. So if you have a chance to try a mulberry, if someone has one in their backyard, that a lot of times they grow in parks, they're very different from if you're used to eating other brambly berries that you can purchase in the supermarket or a farmer's market, your raspberries, your blackberries. They're not as sweet and they definitely have more of an earthy character to them. So in their words, they really believe mulberry is the magic sauce in this, that it imparts a bit of a savory character and earthiness that isn't just sweetness or isn't just acidity. So Marion berries are a type of blackberry, blackberries famously, they can be pretty acidic, pretty tart. Yes. Yes. I think these are distinctive qualities that come through in this beer. Yes. Then boysenberry lastly is a combination of a cross between blackberries and raspberries. So I'll resist in having giving you any more background on these things, talking about Knott's Berry Farm or any preserves. We were going through Fobab and I was like, oh, backyard, I need to try this. Then I tried it and I was like, huh. It was so much more bright and crimped. I don't want to say tinny or coppery because it's not specifically metallic, but it had a brightness that nothing else at Fobab had outside of the mead section. It was weird. I didn't love it at that moment. When we sat down and I sniffed through the lineup of the variants, I didn't love it. When we tried it, I didn't love it. Then we tried the rest of the variants, and then I came back to it, and I was like, oh, it tastes like there is fresh berry puree laying on an English muffin made of Bourbon County brand stout. That's what it is. It's lifted in a venous way, in an expressive fruit way that I don't think I have experienced any of their fruited beers over the last decade with this vibrancy. Yeah, there's a certain purity to the fruit flavors here and a lift. And there's definitely acidity that it provides to the beer. I mean, there's a slight citric edge to it. It's like an acidic edge. Yeah. Roger's talking about these berry fruits. And the thing is, unless you get one that's already mushed up on the ground, what you're tasting isn't what the candy tastes like or the jam tastes like. What you're tasting is fresh acidity in a rich fruit at the same time. And that's true for raspberries and blueberries too, as well as whatever these berries are that you guys love. And it brings a fresh life, like a fresh liveliness of fruit that's not just candied or jammy breadth, but it's vibrancy. Yeah, I think that's the big distinction here. I mean, I've tried meads that are raspberry or blackberry based and they're still jammy and crazy sweet. But the acidity here is the magic that, again, I think too what made it seem such a standout crag at Fobab is that there's a level of attenuation here too. That it's not as syrupy thick. I agree. The weirdest thing about this is in this super rich beer, the fruit doesn't come off as sweet, it comes off as bright and fresh. Yeah. It has spine and cut. Yeah. Somehow, it doesn't add to the sweetness, it actually balances the sweetness. Yes, exactly. In Fobab, in that context, it tasted small. Right. But like really diving into it, I'm like, oh, this is actually amazingly complex. Yeah. Plus, I mean, the berry flavors were spot on. I mean, the nose is just like all raspberry, blackberry. Yeah. My first sip, I immediately thought of eating boysenberry yogurt as a kid, like spot on boysenberry flavor. I thought it was great. So would I rather have them make coffee? Yes. Would I rather have them make some hypothetical Roger approved port barrel aged barley wine? Yes. Yes, I would rather have them do that. But I haven't had the kind of like taking a step back and experiencing something amazing like this from this lineup or most beer in a really long time. I thought that was really impressive. Yeah. I would also say that I don't think we've leaned into this enough in our discussion today, that with all of these variants, all of the different things we tasted today, the star is still the Bourbon County Stout. Right. All of the adjuncts they use this year, all of the treatments, yeah, they underpin, they reinforce, they accentuated, and elevated elements that are already in there. Yeah, it was really skillfully done this year. That also means that there's no creamsicle, and there's no, I don't know what, pecans and pralines, butter, brickel, bulls**t. No, that's all in there. There's no, you know, like- Cola. There's no dreamsicle bar or- I think that with this one, that paradoxical balance, it gives it a, it's like, it's a refreshing barrel-aged beer, is kind of what I said, you know? And I think there's, that's seemingly impossible. Right. But- How about I sum it up like this? We have three variants, they're all fruited, but the fruit is not the front and center of any of them. It's the focus and the structure of the beer. Yes. And that takes us into Bananas Foster. Didn't we do this like six or seven years ago? Yeah, we sure did. So, you know, nostalgia is a thing and- Is that how you're starting this? Yeah. It's a really good beer, Roger, a very good beer. I can't, it can't be a love fest. But what I will say is that tons of people loved this beer when it premiered as a proprietors in 2017. Yeah, that's right. Quinn made it. And again, it's totally just one of those things where everybody's palates are going to be different. But the star of the show here, I bet they would say bananas. I would argue it's the Cassia bark. It's cinnamon. So if you really want to geek out on cinnamon, I promise we won't go too far into the weeds. But when you think of cinnamon, Cassia is what you're eating most of the time. It is cinnamon for all intents and purposes. True cinnamon is a different beast. It's much thinner, brittle, and it's crazy expensive. So again, when you think of cinnamon, odds are it's cassia. So it totally makes sense that they would go with that and use that. I've got to get a chunky cassia bark that I can just gnaw on. That sounds awesome. Yeah, this is Bananas Foster. Again, this is the first time that it's going to be available to a large audience. Oh yeah, it's not a prop this year. It's a wide release. Prop is just Chicagoland only, so at least everybody that has a chance to buy Bourbon County will have a chance to taste this. The other thing that I always found a little bit weird about this beer is that they called it Bananas Foster, but there's no rum component. Arguably, one of the key flavors is almond. Yeah, it's almond, banana, and cinnamon, right? Yeah, so it's- No almond in Bananas Foster. There's no almond in Bananas Foster? No. I feel like banana bread just doesn't really have a nice ring to it, I guess, or it's not as alluring of a name, but- But cinnamon is like fire, right? I mean, maybe if you use spiced rum for the, maybe that's where they're going with some of this, but I guess there's cinnamon in Bananas Foster, but still- Butter, brown sugar, banana liqueur, dark rum. Yeah, is there any cinnamon? Yeah, you could add some cinnamon. I think I see cinnamon in some recipes, but again, my point being- You're sitting around Googling Bananas Foster's recipes? Well, I'm thinking about the last time I made it. I have a Rolodex of Bananas Foster's recipes in my head. I wonder, I guess, this probably would have been worth asking them, where is the almond component come in? I think it's probably that Quinn mentioned the conception of this beer started out as like a trail mix experimentation. So of course, you've got things like almonds and trail mix, you've got banana pieces. Then he was thinking about banana bread, Bennett chocolate covered bananas. So all of that's here. And it's worth mentioning that when they make this batch of beer, sometimes these numbers are a little weird because you don't know the total volume. But still, it's funny to imagine 9,000 pounds of almonds. That's what it took to make this beer. They roasted them and they slivered some raw ones and they roasted and then pulverized some. Pulverized, then roasted. We don't know. That's what he said. He said pulverized and then roasted. Toasted, granulated, slivered and whole roasted. That's three things. Toasted, granulated, slivered and whole roasted is three things. Yeah. So there's three types of almonds. There's an Oxford comma in there somewhere. Three types of almonds went into making this beer. So, call it banana swaster, I guess. That's what they do. It's on the bottle. I would say it's more of like banana bread with... There's no chocolate in banana swaster either. That's true. Well, that's what I was saying. Literally, last night, I was eating banana bread with walnuts and chocolate chips in it. That was intuitive. That's what this is. Much more, right? Yeah. Okay. So, the banana and the almond, I think I noted they're both present, but they're absolutely supporting roles. They're like grace notes. It's the cinnamon, and it again is the structure that the cinnamon brings. There's cinnamon in the next beer, but in this one, it's way more prominent. In both of the beers, it has a building heat, and it just creates, I don't know, like a railway on the palate, so. Just know there, yeah, it's a lot of cinnamon. To me, it's a lot of cinnamon. It's nice. I can see why tons of people love this. It's just a little too much cinnamon for me. They said they made a cassia extract that was like cinnamon syrup. I don't know what the medium was for it. They were saying when they add these, they use these things called dorth. This is a perfect transition. I can't believe I almost forgot to say this. Are we talking about the Dorothy Dinks again? Yes. No, we don't have to talk about the Dorothy Dinks again. This is how they make this concept. Oh, but it's different this year, my friends. No, it's not. It's exactly the same. It's twister. We got confirmation. There's cows flying through the air. I wish Pat was here so badly. I know. It means I'm taking the brunt of this all myself. In order to incorporate these flavors, they use these small tanks that they can re-circ the beer over the ingredient that they want to imbue the beer with. They can then take that portion of highly concentrated bourbon county that's been zhuzhed up with said adjunct and then add that to the final blend as they see fit. The biggest thing with this is that as opposed to just like with lots of coffee beers, they would put the coffee in the tank and they just let the beer sit on it. So it would be like rested. Well, you can expedite the process and extract more flavor if the beer is moving. So they created these things, the Dorothy Tanks, which I always said, oh, you mean like in the movie Twister? And they'd be like, or just the Wizard of Oz. Yeah, because there's a tornado in Wizard of Oz and a character named Dorothy. And that's where they got it in Twister. So exactly. I know that. But this is specifically was a reference to Twister. I'm vindicated. It felt good. It was an awesome day. It's a long reference chain. And I like Roger to Twister to to Judy Garland. I like that you're that you're so happy about this. I love it. And they I suggested they put Bill Paxton on one of the well, Bill Paxton is the modern day Judy Garland. We sure it's not Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, RIP. But yeah, that would be one of them should have Bill Paxton and an RIP and the other one should just have Bill Pullman like smiling. So anyway, that's where you get your cinnamon, cassia intensity like the, what were they calling it? Like a syrup. They said syrup. So I think they made an extract. I think they took the bark and made an extract. And then at the end of the day, people that enjoyed prop are going to love this. If you try to taste it next to prop that's been sitting in your cellar for six years, please remember it's going to taste very different because it's been sitting for six years. They might have picked up some beer making know how since then. I personally feel like one of our classic argument that this particular beer, the original one, was one of our examples for why you should drink these fresh. Because the banana, in my opinion, fell off like almost instantaneously. Which makes sense. In like a year's time, it was gone. And the banana here is present but subtle, so don't sleep on this one. Guzzle it down. Yeah. I would not save this, personally. Bananas to leave this one in the cellar. Dish the truth. They should double- Cabin dish the truth. Oh. Greg. I think they should double barrel this sometime with rum barrels and introduce some rum into the mix. Just enjoy the beer for what it is. Yeah. It's its own thing. It has a delightful banana nose. Speaking of Cassia, that brings us to the final beer in this year's line up. Proprietors. The inspiration, proprietors is often the last few years been inspired by some sort of dessert and this year- Oatmeal cookies. This year, the inspiration was rice pudding, which did you guys grow up eating rice? I know what rice pudding is, but I think they're a little concerned that lots of people never ate it. I discovered it in an Indian restaurant, and all you can eat Indian restaurant buffet in college. I mean, Indian rice pudding is fantastic, but I also grew up eating a lot of rice pudding. In fact, I ate a lot of Jewel Deli rice pudding when I was a child. Jewel Deli rice pudding? You could get it at the Jewels? Yeah, the Jewels Deli. Now, did you eat it hot or cold? Well, in this case, cold. You'd get a two-cup container with cinnamon sprinkled on top. Okay. So for those who aren't familiar, you should go make yourself some rice pudding. It's delicious dessert. It is very custardy, so that's a key component to it. But there's no egg. Is there egg? Yeah. There's egg and rice pudding? Yeah. What kind of rice pudding are we talking about? It's like the rice is intermixed in a maze of pudding. What culture does rice pudding originate from? I think there are many origins for rice pudding. I think a lot of different people make them. A lot of places have rice. Okay, I'll show you. Persia, India. What I was going to say, what you had at an Indian restaurant is probably spiced with a lot of spices, whereas your typical American rice pudding is probably mainly cinnamon. Cinnamon, yeah. Okay. The custardy component, I think, is one of the key flavors and they capture that a couple of different ways. They toasted the rice, which then you get a little more character versus just plain-chain rice. Then they added vanilla, natural flavor, the cassia, of course. There's some brown sugar and raisins. Oatmeal cookie. I think this is going to make people, so even if you've never had rice pudding, it's going to remind you of a lot of beloved desserts. The first thing that comes in mind is bread pudding. Also, because again, we were talking about how you never lose the Bourbon County identity and I get a lot of maple notes to Bourbon County, it made me think of really good French toast. Raisiny French toast. Yeah. On raisin bread. Raisin bread French toast, exactly. Much like with Bananas Foster, there's a lot of pitfalls here that they avoided. They could have overdone a lot of the components of this. There could have been way too much with the vanilla, too much sugar. I probably always love more raisin. I love raisin. But everything works really well. I think they did a nice job. Again, we were saying how balance is the buzzword this year, but taking a step back and looking at the three variants, I think allow me one of my amazing metaphors that you're going to completely understand. There's like a remix or a remaster, and I think like a remix is, what was the ice cream from a couple of years ago? The pink, brown, and green. Oh, Spimony. Spimony. You're adding a drum beat and a synth track that was not on the original recording. That's a remix. These are remasters. They're tweaking the EQs, they're adding some compression, they're bringing it up to modern levels. They're taking the core of OG Bourbon County and just accentuating parts of it in a way that is like, and they're adding structure to all of them that makes them a more interesting version of original that is still completely true to the original. Yeah, I think that's true. Greg really got worked up with that Jungle Bird variant. It was just too much. I don't know. No, I totally get what you're saying, yeah. I feel like sometimes when they get a little too weird with it, it feels forced. I think that's the concern. Sometimes it works and we've lauded them and will continue to do so when they take chances. Oh, don't get me started on Kentucky Fog. It's worth saying that we love the cola, we love the Kentucky Fog. It's always very interesting to see how varied people's reactions are to things. There have been bourbon counties that I love, that other people didn't like and vice versa. Do you like that maple syrup and chili pepper one? That was the Chipotle year no, the guajillo year yes. They went back to back. People's reactions to that were hilarious. Like not again. But that's what Goose has to deal with that. Like they have this expansive fan base. It's like the Star Wars community. There's going to be people that are so invested in this and have so many happy memories tied up with it. They romanticize certain past expressions to the point where they're like, how could you do this to Bourbon? I mean, they were telling that story, right? The first time they put, they made the prop with banana. People were like, bananas, you crossed the line. Well, that's dancer. So, I think- Tools for the United Fruit Company. Again, I think one of the strengths of this one is that unlike something like a jungle bird where it's very specific thing in mind, while this is inspired by rice pudding, it's going to not only hit on flavors that are already there like you emphasized, it's going to bring to mind lots of desserts and breakfast things that people love. Your bread puddings, your- Super Christmassy. Yeah. You know what it reminded me of? Roger, you went to school in the Northeast. There's probably a more modern name for it, but they used to call this Indian pudding. Yes. Cornmeal with maple and brown spices. Really delicious. Yeah. That came to mind for me. I actually made some of that when I was living out there. I had that as a kid growing up and yeah, I always loved it. I totally agree. Cool. What did you think about the rice component? Like in rice pudding, a lot of times the rice is textural and not bringing a lot of flavor, but I thought I could smell the toasty rice. There was a rice component. Wait, are you serious right now? Yeah. I was focused more on the fact that the cinnamon offered frame on both of these beers. Yeah. It was inspired by rice pudding, so they used rice in the beer. Okay. That's like using a pinch of salt. Well, yeah. Well, I think so. Toasting it was was smart. Yeah. So I mean, again, if they had used just the raw rice, yeah, I don't think. Right. I agree. I like you much. I thought the custardy notes in in conjunction with the toasted rice aroma reminded me of like starting to make a pilaf or a risotto where you're slowly toasting rice in a pan and the aromas start to come up into your nose. When you open the box of ronin, it tells you to brown it in the pan first. One thing I was thinking though is like there are some... Rice roni, right? Yeah. There are some incredibly aromatic kinds of rice. So like you were mentioning Indian rice pudding, like if they had used basmati, which is hyper aromatic. Jasmine. Yeah. Or jasmine rice. Yeah. You know, obviously there's a cooked component to custard that is and you usually are putting vanilla in it. So you think of custard with this. So for sure, I think the toastedness of the rice is a part of that. The vanilla is. And then the sprinkling of natural flavor probably is too, but. Vanilla. Oh yeah, maybe that's all the natural flavor is. Yeah, I think there's a vanilla. They used vanilla extract. So yeah, if they didn't use like a custard extract. I mean, it was very, very vanilla custardy. You know, breweries don't like it when we will call people out, you know, we'll use the terms extract and adjunct. At the end of the day, it's all about what it tastes like. So we've just seen the way extracts can be such a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. And we've seen where adjuncts can be overdone. But when either can be done well and done the right way. And if anything, Goose Island takes extra care whenever there's so much work that goes into putting these together. Months of trial and error and... And the end result is a line, an entire six bottle offering this year of complex, layered, interesting, balanced beers. Indeed. Yeah, I think this is going to be really well received. It's a really solid line up. It was probably smart to pare it down a little bit. Yep. Revisit some classics. Again, for me, I think the Angel's Envy was something that was incredibly well thought out. They could have just staged it in Angel's Envy cast and call it a day and been like, yeah, well, there's some subtle poor character there, but... Sure could have put it in that cute art deco box. Yeah, but it wouldn't have been anything like what it expressed as, you know, going the extra mile sourcing those port barrels, blend, you know, taking part of it off, blending it. I mean, that's the extra effort that really created a truly exceptional offering. Totally agree. And it might open the door to, you know, I mean, whiskey is all about, you know, different wood finishes these days, you know, not just the main wood. I think they'll do an ombre on a bourbon county stout. Well, that's what I'm saying. Maybe this will open the door to different finishing barrels in the future. Yeah. I mean, the easiest thing would be Angel's Envy Rye, I think is even more exciting. You know, if somebody was, I probably recommended their rye just as much, if not more than their bourbon. So right there, the standout with that is that it's finished in rum barrels. So those aren't always the easiest thing to work with. Brewers don't necessarily get too excited about them. They can be leaky. But that having been said, that could be a really cool cast finish to just continue the Angel's Envy thing. But age it in rye barrels and then finish in rum barrels. I mean, I don't know how a rum barrel wouldn't work with Bourbon County. Yeah, they did a rum barrel stout recently. I guess one of the only concerns with rum barrel aging is it adds even more sweetness, usually. But if they source the right rum barrels, maybe not so much. So, final stretch, these are great beers, don't sleep on them. The good news this year is there's more than ever, we've got a bunch. Not only are we going to have most of the variants available at most locations, but we also have some extra allocation boxes. So, we are offering this year a collection of one of each of these six bottles, except for in Springfield, Rockford, Bloomington, Champaign, and Peoria. Jim, speed that up so it's hilarious. Those locations don't get propped because they're too far away from Chicagoland. And I think there's a little bit of a dip in price, and it's a really cool gift idea to give one each of these bottles in this cute box. It's real great. And then try some multiple bottling dates of the original. And you'll see like year to year, we know that there's variation, but batch to batch is variation. It just makes sense. And they're all delicious and they're all like you can, if you want to geek out, it is very easy to geek out. Yeah, for sure. What else? Anything else? I think you covered it pretty wholeheartedly. But yeah, I think, as we mentioned before, that this is a great lineup and I'm very excited to see them again, committing to the single distillery and extended aged stouts. Like for me, that's kind of what I'm most passionate about when it comes to Bourbon County and it's cool that they do both, that they still do, you know, these very laborious explorations of adjuncts where they're dialing in just how much to add of I think that other brewers should pay attention to these beers because they're not just making sweet extracted versions of stouts. They're making really thoughtful beers and it could really, once upon a time, they invented this category and they should continue to have an impact on this category in making this like, instead of a gimmick, like a really serious class of beers. Yeah, I think, you know, just like there's a decadence to Bourbon County without being, I don't think you'd ever describe these as pastry stouts. Yeah. And I feel like so many Barrel Age Stouts now, that's kind of the trend. Not even their biscotti was a pastry stout. Yeah. So again, I think they're great to enjoy, always great to share, and something like a backyard stout is dangerously easy to enjoy by oneself. Yeah. But yeah, another year with some just truly exceptional offerings from Goose. Goose, I know you're listening. Give me black jelly bean. It won't be divisive at all. Oh my God. The last thing they would ever do. So if you also think that they should make a black jelly bean, send them a letter, send them an email, hit them up on social media. They made that last year. It was called the biscotti. Yeah, it was a step in the big direction. Okay. Anyway, thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy Bourbon County Stout. We do. I hope you enjoy Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Back in your feed next week. We already did it. What is it? I don't even know. Don't wreck the illusion of that we don't ever record these. Thank you. Everybody else got mad at me for trying that, but are you f***ing with me too? I'm f***ing with you too. F*** you, Roger. All right. Thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Back in your feed real soon with something equally as great. Till then, I'm Greg. I'm Chris. And I'm Roger. Keep tasting. He's going to tell you they got the name Dorothy from the movie Twister. That's what makes us human beings. Right. See, right. It's probably from The Wizard of Oz, but I want it to be Twister, and you're not going to take that away from me.