Apparently six Bourbon County releases weren’t enough.
Goose Island just dropped a late addition to its 2026 Black Friday lineup, and this one might be the wildest barrel treatment of the bunch.
Bourbon County Brand Triple Barrel Stout takes the brewery’s flagship imperial stout through three successive bourbon barrels over the course of three years — an entirely new approach for a beer that has spent more than three decades helping define the bourbon barrel-aged stout category.
And it checks in at a massive 18.7% ABV.
Rather than simply blending beer from different barrels, Goose moves the stout from one bourbon barrel into another and then another, allowing each cask to leave another layer of oak, spirit and character behind. Goose describes the finished beer as intensely barrel-forward, with rich milk chocolate, warming vanilla and deep bourbon character.
It’s fitting for a brewery whose Black Friday releases have increasingly become showcases for just how far its barrel program can push beyond OG Bourbon County.
This year already gave us Toasted Barrel Rye Stout and the return of barleywine in the form of Triple Oak Barleywine. Now Goose is adding a beer built almost entirely around the cumulative impact of three years and three different bourbon barrels.
There is one catch: you’re going to Chicago for this one.
Triple Barrel Stout will be released exclusively at Goose Island’s Chicago properties — the Taproom and Salt Shed Pub — in a 16.9-ounce bottle.
At 18.7%, after three years and three successive bourbon barrels, this isn’t exactly the subtle addition to the 2026 lineup.
Black Friday just got considerably bigger.
-Nkosi
