Warsaw – Warsaw Beer Festival (Goose Island)

I accept that I might need to get out more, but this is just magical, a combination of my two favourite breweries in the world, Funky Fluid and Goose Island. I’ve visited the Goose Island taproom in Chicago and there’s no shortage of posts on this blog about the outstanding Goose Island outlet in Shoreditch before it closed. One of their highlights, brewed in Chicago, is the annual Bourbon County Stout and I thought I’d be missing out as I hardly dare visit the US at the moment and there’s now no UK outlet of this marvellous beer. However, I was surprised and delighted to see that Funky Fluid have brought some of this excellent beer to Warsaw Beer Festival.

This is possibly the best beer in the world, or at least, it’s up there. It’s the 2024 edition of Bourbon County Stout and it weighs in at a mighty 14.7%. In terms of the taste, this is incredible, it’s smooth and hides its booziness with some ease. There’s the flavour from the Bourbon barrels and there’s chocolate, cherry, coffee, fudge and vanilla going on there, tastes almost competing with each other. The maturity of this beer is incredible and it has travelled well, but these rich and decadent stouts don’t struggle with that. Outstanding, it’s a glorious chaos of tastes, it’s rowdy and aggressive, but yet calm and settled.

It might be possible to read between the lines and note that I liked this.