From Goose Island To Revolution, These Are Chicago’s Barrel-Aged Stouts Coming This Season

CHICAGO — They lurk, they hover, they tower. Having traded fine spirits for dark stouts, the barrels rise to the ceiling at Revolution, line Old Irving’s dining room and exist as colonies inside Goose Island’s West Side barrel house or on the other side of the walls from Half Acre’s taproom. Resting for up to three years at a time, their silence is indifferent to beer enthusiasts’ impatience. They are the picture of repose, but a select few come alive this time of year. Goose Island’s annual Bourbon County Brand Stout release has long been viewed by some as the start to stout season. Yet another local legend, Revolution Brewing, has already had its annual Deth’s Tar stouts available for a month. These releases are celebrated by beer enthusiasts both locally and beyond the city’s borders — after all, Chicago is the birthplace of the alchemy of using barrels to transform heavy stouts. Brewers here lean into the city’s turbulent weather patterns, eschewing climate control in thei