Bramble Rye Bourbon County Brand  Stout brewed by Goose Island Brewing - Chicago, Illinois

At Goose Island, their brewers take every opportunity to experiment with new ingredients and aging techniques. For this edition of Bourbon County Brand Stout, they aged the classic recipe in rye whiskey barrels with raspberries and blackberries from Michigan. The result is a powerfully rich beer with notes of tart fruit and jam that fade into the warm spice of a fine rye whiskey. ABV: 12.8%. IBUs: 60. Malts: 2-Row, Munich, Chocolate, Caramel, Roast Barley, Debittered Black, Rye. Hops: Columbus

           
Review by Beer Advocate
Appearance - Pours black and viscous with an oily 1/2 finger of dark khaki head which settles into a healthy ring and film rather quickly. Legs already forming.

Aroma - Gives off a luscious nose of dark raisin, plums, oaky vanilla, and brown sugar. Whiffs of alcohol are more reminiscent of sweet rum than whiskey.

       
Taste - A rush chocolate-covered blueberry character greets the palate, followed by some juicy raspberry, caraway seed, rye, and some light bourbon musk rounding out the finish. The density and sweetness of the composite flavors are not unlike black forest cake (according to my half-brained scribblings).

Mouthfeel - Medium to full-bodied for the style, with good chew and oiliness. A bit of alcohol dances on the tongue, and the finish lingers just like a big bourbon stout ought to.

Overall - Another very well balanced entry into the Bourbon County series. I thought I would like this the least of the Vanilla, Coffee, BCBS, and Bramble, but it has turned out to be my second favorite behind the Coffee. The berry notes weren't as bright as I expected them to be, and they played a much more useful supporting role to the bourbon flavors than I would have imagined. Seek this one out if you can, but if you had to choose, I would still give Coffee the highest recommendation.
  
    
 
Goose Island History
When the first Goose Island Brewpub opened its doors in 1988, domestic, mass-produced beer was deeply ingrained in Midwestern culture. The craft beer industry was still in its infancy, with only a handful of brewpubs in existence in the Midwest. In his travels across Europe, beer-lover John Hall had enjoyed a distinctive local brew in each region he visited. Hall was convinced that Midwesterners could produce beers as good or better than those he’d tasted in his travels. Living on the shore of the largest system of fresh water on the planet Earth, in a city with rapidly evolving tastes – John decided that his hometown, Chicago, would be the ideal place to do just that.

The key to building interest in craft beer, Hall decided, was to allow consumers to watch the brewing process – while providing them with the then-novel experience of enjoying a wide variety of distinctive beers that had been produced on-site. Hall wanted to not only cater to his customers’ tastes, but to challenge them as well. Goose Island’s brewers set to work crafting a diverse selection of unique beers – and on Friday, May 13, 1988 the Goose Island Brewpub was born.

It turned out that John was right; Chicagoans palates evolved rapidly once Goose Island’s Brewpub opened its doors and introduced the city to distinctive craft beer. By 1995, the brewpub had become so popular that John Hall decided to open a larger brewery and bottling plant to keep up with demand. Finding still more room for growth, in 1999 Hall opened a second Goose Island Brewpub just a stone’s throw away from historic Wrigley Field.

Today, Goose Island continues to brew an innovative selection of over 50 craft beers at the brewpub, the best of which are then bottled at our Fulton Street brewery. Goose Island beers are now enjoyed in 26 states and Europe.