The Midwest Beer Pioneer That Changed The Brewing Game Forever

There is one school of anthropology that believes humans moved on from hunting and gathering to growing their own food so they had enough grain on hand to make beer. In fact, the world's first-ever beer recipe can be traced back to ancient Egyptians. Given that people have been brewing beer since the start of civilization, it's hard to believe that it took thousands of years for someone to marry the richness of stout with the complexity of bourbon. In 1992, Chicago-based Goose Island Beer Co. decided to celebrate its thousandth batch by brewing a special stout and then aging it in discarded Jim Beam casks. Not only did it end up creating a delicious beer, it practically gave birth to a whole new category.

The seeds of this experiment were planted at a beer, bourbon and cigar dinner, where Goose Island's Greg Hall was seated next to Jim Beam's master distiller, Booker Noe. One thing led to another and the evening ended with Hall asking Noe if he could get his hands on some discarded Jim Beam casks. The craft beer revolution was still in its infancy, and while barrel aging beers wasn't new by any account, no one had tried barrel aging stout in a used whiskey barrel. "We all had big smiles when we finally pulled it out of the bourbon barrels," Greg Hall said in a YouTube video posted by Goose Island Brewery, adding that they knew instantly that batch number 1,000 would be a hit. 

Having said that, he was also certain it was a one-off. "This was our one special batch — one thousand. You know, at the time we thought we'd never make it again," Hall said. He could not have been more wrong.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed a bill that allowed Americans to brew beers at home, triggering a culture of experimentation and providing impetus to the craft beer movement. This triggered a wave of experimentation that laid the foundation for some truly unique breweries. But not all experiments went down smoothly. One brewery came up with a Rocky Mountain oyster stout, another sold a beer that used strands of human beard in the fermentation process. Goose Island Brewery's unusual Bourbon County itself was once disqualified from the Great American Beer Festival — organisers just couldn't figure out what category to place it in. 

Without realizing it at the time, Goose Island Beer Co. ended up pioneering an entirely new style of beer. According to a report from Market Intelo, the global barrel-aged beer industry was valued at just under $2 billion dollars in 2025. The report also attributed an incredible 38.5% market share specifically to bourbon barrel-aged beers, of which Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout family of beers dominates. 

The experiments never stop at Goose Island. Over the last few years, the brand has released Bourbon County Stout flavors like cherries jubilee, chocolate praline, vanilla rye, and macaroon among others. Over the decades, it has released over 70 variations (the vanilla rye and macaroon stouts went down well when we ranked each of the 2024 Bourbon County Stout beers). These limited-edition beers, released annually, are in such demand that people are willing to pay three to four times the original price after they sell out.