Bourbon Barrel Aged Beer…the Beginning

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How the South’s Bourbon Culture Changed Craft Beer
Love a bourbon barrel–aged stout? You can thank a wild and crazy idea cooked up by Jim Beam and Goose Island
Todd Ahsmann slides the six-ounce tasting glass closer to him, gently swirls the dark brown liquid therein, and then lifts the glass to his nose, breathing in deeply.
“I’m getting a bit of chocolate on the nose,” he says.
Then Ahsmann takes a sip, observing the fluid with his tongue, opening his mouth to let fresh oxygen unlock layer upon layer of flavor, even after he has swallowed.
“There’s vanilla, some molasses,” he says. “Some cherry, almond…oak on the back end.”
Ahsmann voice echoes against vaulted ceilings and brick walls lined with charred white-oak barrels, stacked four high, each filled with aging alcohol. But this isn’t a typical Kentucky rickhouse, nor is it some cellar in the heart of Napa wine country. It’s the Goose Island Barrel House, where the Chicago-based craft-beer pioneers age their imperial stout for up to sixteen months in used bourbon barrels.
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