Take a whiff from your Peaks & Pints taster glass, have a sip, and you’ll discover. The flavors that develop when beer is aged in booze-soaked oak are stunning. Bitter, harsh stouts can turn seductive and smooth as silk. The alcohol percentage tips the scales over 10 percent, the body of the beer becomes silk-smooth, and wood characteristics — like oak, vanilla and dry tannins — sink into the roasted malts, creating a symphony of dark flavors. Today marks the last day of our Dark Days of Thanksgiving imperial stout festival, and we’re going out with a bang! We’ll tap bourbon barrel-aged stouts today. Sadly, Goose Island didn’t send 2024 Bourbon County Brand Stout kegs to Tacoma, but we do have a keg from last year — as well as this year’s bottles and a couple variants. We do have cellared imperial stout bottles for sale, and a flight of bourbon barrel-aged stout, which we’re calling Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Black Friday Boozy Stouts.
Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Black Friday Boozy Stouts
Oakshire Eighteen
13% ABV
Brewed for Oakshire Brewing’s 18th anniversary, this imperial rye stout base is condition in Evan Williams High-Rye Whiskey Barrels for 22 months. Eighteen blends chocolate and spice flavors with a depth of character worth celebrating.
AleSmith Barrel-Aged Speedway Stout
13.3% ABV
AleSmith Brewing’s Speedway Stout goes a step farther than most coffee-flavored stouts and porters (which derive their flavor from roasted malts) and includes an unspecified amount of ground coffee in the brewing process. The result is an intimidatingly dark beer that pours smoothly, leaves very little head, and is surprisingly light and easy to drink. The coffee flavor dominates: the beer is reminiscent of a freshly brewed iced coffee with hints of chocolate and caramel. The barrel-aged version is aged in premium bourbon barrels for up to one year for added notes of oak, vanilla, and bourbon to this beer’s already massive flavor profile.
Matchless Thurston County 2023
13.5% ABV
Matchless Brewing’s annual release and tribute to Goose Island’s bourbon barrel-aged stout, we pulled out our cellared 2023 version of Thurston County whiskey-aged imperial stout. Last year’s version is a culmination of two different stouts — Russian and Oatmeal imperial — the bulk of which aged in whiskey barrels from Westward Whiskey and the remainder aged in stainless for notes of molasses, chocolate, roast, dark fruit, subtle vanilla and booze. While this one might not be coming straight from Bourbon County, they still get thirsty in Thurston County, as well as Pierce County.
Reuben’s BBIS
14% ABV
Reuben’s Brews’ Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout, or BBIS, is brewed using the same oat-forward and British specialty malt recipe that the Seattle brewery followed with the original release in 2013. Over the years they have adjusted and enhanced it, introducing new techniques to produce a bigger, richer, and silkier beer. Most of the barrels in this year’s blend have spent about 18 months aging in 8- to 12-year-old bourbon barrels, with the addition of some younger BBIS to contribute to the complexity of this bold imperial stout. Expect warming aromas of cocoa, milk chocolate and bourbon, a silky mouthfeel, and notes of roast, dried fruit, chocolate, vanilla, oak and bourbon.
Goose Island 2023 Bourbon County Brand Stout
14.7% ABV
More than 22 years ago Greg Hall wanted to brew something truly unique for Goose Island brewpub’s 1000th batch — he just needed inspiration. Then a chance encounter between Greg and Jim Beam’s legendary distiller, Booker Noe, led to Goose Island acquiring the barrels for what was to become the world’s first bourbon barrel aged beer. Since then, the beer has become a phenomenon. The 2023 version is aged in a mix of freshly emptied bourbon barrels from Buffalo Trace, Heaven Hill, Four Roses, and Wild Turkey distilleries. Barrel aged for an average of 12 months, the 2023 Original boasts deeply developed flavors of fudge, vanilla, and caramelized sugar with a rich, decadent mouthfeel.
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
