Goose Island BCBS vs My Clone Attempts (2022)

Brewing a clone of the famous Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout has become an obsession of mine.  The is a strong stout which is aged in second use Bourbon Barrels, and which boasts a very strong, very delightful, boozy character.  Goose Island provides the recipe for the beer as if to dare the home brewer to attempt to copy them.  Would that it were so simple.  Between the big, sweet, beer and the effects of spirit and oak, this is a very difficult beer to even get a passible clone for (read about my previous vertical tasting).

I've made 3 attempts at this beer so far:

• Attempt #1 (2018):  Hit my OG target (1.130) but was a little high on my FG (1.046 vs 1.040 target).  Aged this beer with 4 1x6 sticks (4 oz) of oak that I toasted at 450 F, then charred, then soaked in Makers Mark Whiskey for several months.  This beer didn't have the whiskey kick of BCBS
• Attempt #2 (2019):  Was a bit high on the OG (1.136) and ended quite a bit high for OG at 1.055.  I didn't think this would make as big a difference as it did (the beer is noticeably sweeter).  To try to get more alcohol character than last time I switched to using Everclear watered down to 60% Alcohol (barrel strength) and aged toasted and charred oak on this before putting (~4 ounces again) it with the beer.  This beer also lacked the whiskey kick of BCBS.
• Attempt #3 (2020):  Was a little high on OG (1.135) but hit the FG number (had to add some high gravity yeast in order to do this).  This time I decided to do some assessment of the surface area of a barrel to determine the amount of oaking and settled on 56 sqin/gal of oak surface are is need to match a large barrel - this is 3-4x oak compared with what I used previously.  I toasted this oak at around 375 F, aggressively charred it (alligator char), and then let it soak on the barrel strength Everclear for a year in the hot attic.  Everclear is pretty expensive, and I didn't want to buy enough to make 5-6 gal of barrel strength booze, so I used something like a 4x higher concentration of oak to alcohol ratio than is used in a real whiskey barrel to make as much oak as I needed.  This produced a much more oaky booze than a commercial bourbon

This will be a post evaluating the taste profiles of my 3 Bourbon County Brand Stouts against a bottle of the 2021 BCBS Vintage

Attempt #1 (2018) Comparison:

• Aroma:
• Boozy with chocolate and coffee.  Maybe a bit of fruit
• Appearance:
• Black (or very dark brown) and opaque.  Pours with a thin layer of head that quickly fades to nothing
• Flavor:
• Dark Chocolate and coffee.  Booze hits next with a bit of sweetness.  The finish is a balance of the sweet chocolate flavor, a bit of bitterness, and some booze
• Mouthfeel:
• Full bodied and fairly sweet - leaves the palate sticky.  The alcohol has a warming effect
• Overall:
• Richly flavored with a pretty good level of complexity with the chocolate and coffee flavors.  Tasted in issolation, it seems to have a fairly firm booze character.
• BCBS Comparison:
• BCBS is much stronger bourbon/booze character on the nose.  Mine is very malty in comparison.  Same story with the flavor, BCBS is much stronger up front with bourbon while the other flavors are complimentary while the balance of my beer is towards malt with booze as the secondary flavor

Attempt #2 (2019) Comparison:

• Aroma:
• Boozy with dark chocolate and maybe a bit of fruit character
• Appearance:
• Pours with practically no foam.  Dark brown/black in color and opaque
• Flavor:
• Sweet chocolate flavor with maybe a bit of coffee.  Very rich flavor.  There is a hint of booze on the finish that is balanced by sweet malt and a light bitterness.  The beer has a slight fruity character as well
• Mouthfeel:
• Full bodied and sticky sweet on the palate pretty smooth.  A fair bit of warming from the alcohol on the back of the throat
• Overall:
• This is a sweet, rich, and decadent beer.  Bold flavors here but bourbon isn't really one of them
• BCBS Comparison:
• Not even close for this one.  BCBS feels very light on the palate by comparison and is nowhere near this sweet

Attempt #3 (2020) Comparison:

• Aroma:
• Boozy with chocolate, oak character, and a caramel-like aroma
• Appearance:
• Black and opaque.  Poured with almost no foam
• Flavor:
• Boozy with a chocolate and caramel flavor.  The booze lingers on the palate through the finish.  The finish is sweet chocolate, booze, and a bit of hop bitterness.  Definitely get a fair amount of oak flavor in there too.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-full bodied and fairly sweet.  Good amount of alcohol warming
• Overall:
• Very bold flavors in this one and pretty complex between the sweet malt and boozy/oaky flavors
• BCBS Comparison:
• On the nose the BCBS is slightly more boozy but it is very close.  The caramel of the aroma is a bit richer in mine - caramel in both cases but mine is more of a dark caramel (or maybe a maple syrup).  For flavor, they are also very close in terms of booze levels with mine being slightly less bold.  BCBS tastes very much like bourbon and mine, although boozy and oaky, doesn't have the same bourbon flavor

So, based on these tastings, I would say my level of oaking on Attempt #3 was a move in the right direction but the flavors I was able to extract from the oak weren't right.  I think the toasting and charring I used here (which weren't all that well documented) were likely at fault.  I think a more careful assessment of oak preparation which best replicates the bourbon flavor would be helpful to guide my next attempt.