Ssssh, Don’t Tell Anyone About This Beer

Nothing looked appealing as I pawed through the beer fridge on a numbingly cold night – something about the humidity and biting wind had chilled me to the bone, and none of the beers called to me.

And then I saw it standing all alone in the furthest reaches of the fridge, a 2014 Bourbon County, a stout aged in bourbon barrels, brewed by Goose Island of Chicago.

It was at the back of the fridge for a reason – I wanted to slow-age this beer for a year or two. But it was just what I was looking for at that very moment, so without hesitation pulled the bottle out of the fridge and waited as long as I could for it to warm up before cracking open the 12-ounce bottle. It fizzed with intensity – well, fizzed is too effervescent a word for what took place; it was more of a sizzle.

As I poured it into a big snifter, the aroma itself was intoxicating – deep, richly dark and plummy, with just a sharp whiff of bourbon/alcohol. The alcohol is natural in a big 14.4 percent brew.

The taste? Well, after the first sip I cued up The Faces’ Ooh La La on the turntable and sipped at this lip-smacking brew guilt free. “I’ll buy another bottle to age,” I said out loud, just to remind myself.

It has the most incredibly silky mouthfeel that immediately applies a thick layer of intense dark flavors across your palate, with an ever-changing array of darkness unfolding in your mouth, and then slowly thinning to a prickly sharpness and, finally, the numbing alcohol. It puts your palate through so many amazing changes with each sip that you cannot help but have an achingly wide smile spread across your face the whole time you are sipping your way down to the inevitable end. It’s almost thick enough to chew.

Best of all, it achieved exactly what I was looking for – inner fire. The first sips drove out any inner coldness, and subsequent sips produced a warm, tingly glow inside and out.

I cannot say enough about this spectacular beer. And perhaps I’ve said too much. Don’t buy it all. Save some for me, please.