Goose Island Bourbon County Stout Among The Most Influential Beers Of All Time

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jan 21, 2013 4:30PM

The website First We Feast polled a group of beer experts to create a list of the 20 most influential beers of all time. Goose Island’s highly prized Bourbon County Stout made the list.

Dave Brodrick, owner of Blind Tiger Ale House in New York City, explains why he chose BCS.

”Back in 1994, to honor the 1,000th batch of beer made at the original Goose Island brewpub, Greg Hall put some Imperial Stout into bourbon barrels and completely changed the craft-beer world. Suddenly, everyone was talking about Bourbon County Stout, and every brewery seemed to have a barrel program.”

Indeed, the roots of American craft beer’s infatuation with barrel aging began all those years ago at Goose Island Clybourn, which proved that everything that was old is new again; barrel aging has always been a part of brewing. But not even Hall could have predicted such a sweeping sea change. With 2011’s Goose Island-AB/InBev merger, Bourbon County Stout (and its myriad variations) are no longer in limited supply. But it’s still an amazing beer.