Goose Island Bourbon County Chocolate Cherry Stout

Brewed by Goose Island Beer Company (AB-InBev)
Style: Imperial Stout
Chicago, Illinois USA

Serve in Snifter

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

Draft at Stout Fest. Pours a deep black/brown with a brown head. Nose is nice. Lots of pie cherries and chocolate, light vanilla and bourbon. Nice. On tasting, lots of pie cherry flavor mingling with the smooth bourbon county stout base. Loads of chocolate and molasses and booze, but the cherries rise to the top. Pretty damn cool beer here!

Stoutfest 2012, Dark black pour, cherry, chocolate, and bourbon aroma. Taste was a little too sweet and syrupy for me, kind of reminded me of a really good cough syrup.

Enjoyed on tap at Goose Island Stout Fest 2012 in Chicago, IL. One of the many BCS varieties on tap that day. Appearance is a rich pitch black with a thin tan rim. Aroma of cherry, chocolate, bit of coffee, light sweetness, booze is noticeable but not as dominant like other BCS varieties. Taste is a light sour, rich, but still pretty smooth with the cherries being balanced nicely with the chocolate. Not my favorite BCS variety but still very good, happy to have tried.

Bottle. Black and very very powerful. Immediate impact of vanilla followed by lots of complex full bodied flavours. A but overpowering for my own taste but still one to go for.

Luckily I made my way up to Minnesota for craft beer week and got to try this rare piece of goose! A: Dark black no head just like the other Bourbon County beers. S: Really nice. I could smell the cherry in it but not overpowering or nasty/cheap smelling like a maraschino cherry is. Getting strong bourbon notes, I wonder if this was made with the 2010 version because it smells like a fresh BCBS. T: Damn that is good! Like a chocolate covered cherry. Very sweet and bourbony but I love both those things in stouts so yeah this is doing it for me. It is a fresh Bourbon County but the cherry flavor seems to balance that "hotness" a bit. O: Yet another grand slam in my eyes for the bourbon county style. I am really lucky to have tried this and I have to admit I drank about 4-5 of these that night. Spectacular.

Tap at The Happy Gnome in St. Paul, MN on 5/13/2011. Very dark pour - not quite as dark as regular BCS (held both up to sunlight), but close. The woody bourbon nose of BCS is somewhat replaced/trumped by mild tart cherry. Similar effect on the taste - it isn’t bourbon-forward like BCS, but that sweet tart cherry is more dominant. Not overly sweet, but slightly so. Great stuff.

Looks like any bcs... Any awesome nose that reminds me a sweet ba barleywine, bourbon, malts, cherries... The cherries come across more as vanilla than cherry in the taste, but tastes awesome. I hope to see this again soon.

draft at Stoutfest ’11. pours black with small tan head. nose has sweet chocolate covered cherries, vanilla and bourbon. flavor has cherry pits, chocolatey bourbon goodness. cherry and chocolate executed very nicely. good stuff.

Cherry BCS sampled on tap at Goose Island Stoutfest 2011... Pours the same as the rest of the BCS incarnations, generally good... Flavors are nice and smooth with sweet cherry flavor with a milder bourbon presence. Sweet through the middle and lastingly beyond. Nice with a sweet cherry flavor. Enjoyed a touch more so than the Mexican chocolate and didn’t find it as medicinal as i would with other ba cherry brews (behemoth comes to mind).

Sampled on tap at Stoutfest 2011 (Chicago, IL). Pours a pitchblack opaque inky thick pour, with near non-existant head with just a beast of appearance. Initial is thick, dark, chocolatey, with some cherries, with bourbon, vanilla tannins, with tasty rich sweetness, roast, toast, and toffee. Finish leaves some lingering cherry, vanilla, sweet toffee, and roast, full bodied and more complex, some medicinal cherry falls into the fold in my mind, but I admittedly am very sensitive to cough syrup and the like. Not quite a synergistic approach. Tasty, rich, not bad, a nice dose of Bourbon spirit, still quite full bodied, vanilla tannins and oak, some tangy cherry. Finish lingers on.. It just might be the cherry that I don’t personally love. Dark cacao and bourbon works well. I’d love to give this another go down the line with less going on around me and just one focus on it, as it seemed like everyone else loved it. As it stands right now, it was a solid BCS variant, but not at the top.