Goose Island to bring back its much-anticipated barrel aged beer to UK stores

Chicago craft brewery Goose Island has announced that its rare and multi-award-winning Bourbon County Brand Stout (15.2% ABV) will return to UK shores this Black Friday (23rd November).

But, if the track record is anything to go by, craft beer fans will need to be quick if they want to nab a bottle of the highly sought-after beer, with round-the-block queues of beer enthusiasts expected. When first launched in 2016, the limited run of 100 bottles sold out in under an hour, and in 2017 the beer sold out online in under four minutes!

Traditionally launched in the US on Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving – the eagerly anticipated bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout will be available for £20 (16.9oz bottle) in limited quantities at Kill the Cat in Shoreditch, Ghost Whale in Brixton from 11:00 GMT, and on Beerhawk.co.uk, whilst stocks last, from 13:00 GMT.

Aged in 4+ year old Heaven Hill Bourbon barrels, Bourbon County Brand Stout packs a wallop with flavours of cocoa, vanilla, caramel, almond, cherry. Additional notes of leather and tobacco permeate this complex beer that deepens with each sip. In fact, one sip has more flavour than your average case of beer.

More than twenty years ago, Greg Hall – the son of Goose Island founder John Hall – brewed the truly unique beer for Goose Island’s original Chicagoan Clybourn Brewpub’s 1000th batch. This year, for the first time, the world-renowned brew will be served at the craft brewery’s first European Brewpub, at an exclusive Bourbon County Brand Stout 2018 barrel tapping at the newly opened Goose Island Shoreditch Brewpub this Black Friday, 23rd November.