New Video Goes Behind The Scenes At Festival of Wood And Barrel Aged Beers

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jan 21, 2013 8:40PM

We mentioned earlier today about how the first batch of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout led to a renaissance in American craft brewing: Today few new craft breweries fail to incorporate a barrel program into it production plan.

Our friends at Chicago Beer Geeks worked with BeerFX.com to produce this short video documentary (a little over 13 minutes long) that shows how Chicago craft breweries followed Goose Island's lead and how that eventually led to the creation of the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild's Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beers. That festival is now the most popular and important beer festival in Chicago; more than any, this festival is the barometer that will separate the players in Chicago craft beer from the also-rans.

Watching the video we can't help but want to pour one out for Goose Island. Their barrel program still may be in place and remain the gold standard, but seeing former Goose Island employees like John Laffler and Jared Rouben reminds us that an important chapter of Goose Island's history is ending.