Guinness Stout Aged in Bulleit Bourbon Barrels

Review Date 11/24/2018  By John Staradumsky

  Style: Foreign Stout   Brewery: Guinness   Country: Ireland   State: N/A   $ Per OZ: $.45 (B)   ABV: 10%

Black Friday! It’s the craziest day of the year. If I had my druthers, I would avoid it like the plague, but something I can’t ignore has made its way into this decadent orgy of consumer indulgence: beer. That’s right, a number of breweries now release special beers to the public on this day. Perhaps the most famous is Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout and its assorted variants. I’ve only ever found the coffee version, that was just last year in fact. It was $15 and that is high for one bottle of beer. This year, I only saw the Bramble Rye edition, and that was $25 a bottle. I did not buy it.

Not to worry, though, for $5 less I got a 4-pack of Guinness Stout Aged in Bulleit Bourbon Barrels. This isn’t Guinness standard stout though, it’s a version of Guinness Antwerpen Stout, which is in reality Guinness Special Export Stout outside of Belgium. Then too, it’s a fortified version thereof; 10% alcohol by volume compared to 8% for traditional Antwerpen/SES Stout. This is Foreign Stout my friends, a Guinness specialty.

The label says Guinness Stout Aged in Bulleit Bourbon Barrels is Brewed in Dublin. Aged in Baltimore. The brewing occurs at Guinness historic St. James Gate brewery in Ireland, while the aging occurs at the brand-new Guinness Open Gate Brewery in the Unites States. The Bulleit Bourbon distillery is located in Kentucky (and keeping it all in the family, it’s owned by Diageo just as Guinness is).

Guinness says on the label:

Guinness Antwerpen Stout aged at our new Guinness Open Gate Brewery and Barrel House in Baltimore MD in Bulleit Bourbon Casks. Rich and full-bodied with notes of dark caramel and coconut.

Guinness Stout Aged in Bulleit Bourbon Barrels pours to a jet-black color with a light creamy tan head and a rich nose of pronounced raisin and boozy bourbon. Taking a sip, the beer has the chocolate and raisin notes familiar to Antwerpen/SES drinkers with some new and exciting elements of toasted coconut, wood, vanilla, and boozy bourbon with warming alcohol in the finish.

This a very nice beer indeed. Guinness Special Export Stout is in my estimation one of the best beers in the world. It is also one of the most rare, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw it released as Antwerpen Stout in the US a few years ago. A Barrel aged version? That’s just icing on the cake. My only quibble is the price. It’s about $5-$8 a 4-pak more than it should be, I think. Still, compare it to the $25 a single bottle (albeit larger bottle) BCBS was commanding and the sting is reduced.

A full five stars for me, less ½ star for the high price.

Glad I tried it?  T

Would I rebuy it??