2017 Goose Island Proprietor's Bourbon County Brand Stout

Brewed By: Goose Island Beer Company (owned by AB InBev) in Chicago, IL 

Purchased: 16.9oz bottle bought at Binny's in Chicago, IL; 2017 (bottled 01SEP17)

Style/ABV: Russian Imperial Stout, 14.0%

Reported IBUs: 60

I guess the preferred nomenclature is "cassia." Oh hey, kind reader, is that a banana in your pocket or your beer. I'm not even mad that InBev did a Budweiser ad making fun of adjunct beers. Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn't have stood in line for 20 hours for this one. Tonight's beer is a pastry boi in all the ways imaginable. Prop is -- of course -- the "Chicago exclusive" deviant of Bourbon County. Every year Goose Island brews something different (exclusively for Chicago; because Goose Island are the abusive husband and Chicago beer drinkers are the helpless spouse), and it looks something like this:

"May Contain Wheat"

The 2017 features banana puree, cassia bark, and almonds. This beer of course maintains the typical BCBS appearance...dark body, little light penetration, thick, brown head. There's some sediment and maybe a touch of residual oil stuff on the top of the beer.

2017 Goose Island Proprietor's Bourbon County Brand Stout

Most impressive is the beer's aroma, which absolutely nails you with banana puree, bananas, and banana bread. In fact there's QUITE A BIT of banana on the nose. It really distracts you from the base beer, which is distant in the aroma. A secondary aroma is the cassia which provides a woody/earthy birch-wood-like cinnamon flavor. The banana cinnamon notes inspire all sorts of desserts, from banana fosters to spiced banana bread to banana pudding. It's a lovely aroma and something totally unexpected and unique.

The big surprise about Prop 2017 is just (A) how complex and rich the beer is and (B) how different it is from the regular. Where regular BCBS 2017 is an exercise in chocolate and sweetness, Prop 2017 is more about complex layers of interesting flavors. There's the banana element, the cinnamon element, the banana-cinnamon-bread thing, the chocolate-banana, the chocolate-cinnamon kiss of Mexican chocolate, bourbon, macaroons, coconut, and some nice booze (with warming alcohol to boot). This is flavorful stuff and it is not one-note. It's not just banana puree. It's not overly sweet.

And that is what differentiates Prop 2017 from other beers. Even other BCBS variants. BCBS is always intriguing but some of the variants are more or less dialed in. This IS dialed in with tons of complexity, depth, duration, and novelty. It's a novelty beer so we should clarify that up front. It is also in pretty limited supply...so there's that too. Up front you get a lot of banana, cinnamon, cassia, banana bread, banana fosters, and banana wafer; the mids roll into macaroon, vanilla, bourbon, Mexican chocolate, chocolate; the back end even features some pulpy banana and green banana, along with the spirit. It's sweet but sweet like a dessert, which there are layers of in the beer. 

Rating: Strong Divine Brew (5.0/5.0 Untappd)

obligatory potato box pic

So is this worth trading for? I think this is a worthy novelty, and I'm pretty happy I got to try it. If you don't like bananas then you're in luck. If you do like bananas, you probably should make an effort to grab one bottle of this. I wonder how this is going to age, especially since I still see people flipping bottles of the 2013 and 2014 props. 2015 was obviously infected, and 2016 is weird niche fetish shit. Which I kind of like. 

Random Thought: And yeah, it turns out people do actually drink this beer. If you're wondering what the inspiration is...a very strange few weeks, I think. I recently parted with my car of 14 years which was surprisingly personal and hard to do. Cars are in many ways an extension of ourselves, and I put a lot of miles and memories in mine. So as an ode to my '04 Taurus, I'll see you on the other side...