While they’ve long co-existed in separate aisles of the liquor store, bourbon and beer have more in common than people might imagine. Modern beer drinkers have come to prize a complexity in flavor that a fine-spirits aficionado can easily appreciate. And in pursuit of distinction and sophistication, beer makers have even adopted some bourbon-world practices, including barrel-aging, batch blending, bourbon-style grain bills incorporating rye or wheat, and finishing in specialty casks like rum, sherry, or maple syrup.
As a result, there are many points of entry for beer-curious bourbon lovers looking to sip something different. (After all, as the weather warms, sometimes you just crave a cold one.) From bourbon-barrel-aged stout to IPA matured on white oak to one blended brew that even approaches whiskey’s alcohol content, these bottles and cans offer the best of both worlds, delivering new experiences for beer lovers and pleasing notes of familiarity to rickhouse regulars.
Bourbon County Brand Stout
Goose Island Beer Company; Chicago, IL
ABV: 14.8%
Pioneers of aging beer in bourbon barrels, Goose Island brewmaster Gregory Hall and legendary Jim Beam master distiller Booker Noe II first joined forces in the early 1990s. Since then, Bourbon County Brand Stout (BCS) has become an industry standard of the science, pairing the rich fig-and-almond sweetness of an imperial stout with the tannins, booziness, and faint bit of the bourbon that soaked into the staves. Released each year on Black Friday, BCS is also available nationwide, so it’s the perfect intro to barrel-aged beer.
Utopias
Samuel Adams; Boston, MA
ABV: 30%
From the widely available to the rarest of the rare, this Boston strong ale is illegal to sell as beer in fifteen states. That’s due to the lofty 30 percent alcohol content (60 proof in the whiskey world), nearly three times the typical barrel-aged beer. The brewery releases Utopias only every other year. Of course, the scarcity and gravity should only increase the appeal of this potion to bourbon connoisseurs. Utopias is also a blend of ales aged in different types of barrels—from Irish whiskey to port to Cognac to Scotch—giving it an exceedingly complex bouquet of flavors and aromas that take an experienced spirits-sipper to appreciate.
Bo & Luke Imperial Smoked Stout
Against the Grain; Louisville, KY
ABV: 13%
What better place for a whiskey tippler to find a spirit-adjacent beer than Bourbon City? Opened in 2011, Against the Grain recently transitioned to a production-only facility, but the brewery still has immediate access to some of the best spent bourbon barrels in the world. While Bo & Luke is aged in the sacred oak, what makes this stout a must-try for bourbon lovers is its familiar grain bill—barley, rye, and corn—subsequently smoked with cherry wood for a robust, smoky base that whiskey drinkers could relate to even before it’s imbued with vanilla and spice from the barrel.
White Oak Jai Alai
Cigar City Brewing; Tampa, FL
ABV: 7.5%
You don’t necessarily have to wade in dark brews to find bourbon’s influence on craft beer. Ever adventurous brewers are constantly looking for different ways to spin their flagship ales and lagers. Cigar City, a Tampa beer institution, offers seasonal releases of its iconic American IPA that use white oak spirals to give the hoppy concoction a softer texture, a blunted bitterness, and notes of vanilla and coconut, while the tannins dry out the finish.
The Tree That Owns Itself
Creature Comforts; Athens, GA
ABV: 13%
In another departure from stouts, Creature Comforts looks to barleywine for the Tree That Owns Itself (named for an Athens landmark). A lighter, more hop-forward style, barleywine has the strength of a stout but with more caramel- and dark-fruit-sweetness that plays wonderfully with the vanilla, oak, and other spiritous notes imbued in the wood. This malty beauty rests in Willett bourbon barrels for 23 months to produce a rich and fruity sip with notes of brown sugar, molasses, and toffee. And it drinks smooth, like a bourbon finished in port barrels.
BA Das Cake
Xul Beer Co.; Knoxville, TN
ABV: 13%
Another parallel between barrel-aged beer and bourbon is the emphasis on variation from year to year. Most of the BA series of brews from Knoxville’s renowned Xul Beer are annual releases, with each aging for a different length of time in different barrels, lending themselves to a vertical tasting, just like whiskey. The 2025 version of the decadent Das Cake, a cupcake-inspired imperial stout, rested for 19 to 28 months in Willett, Russell’s Reserve, and Weller Full Proof barrels before being conditioned on coconut, cocoa nibs, and vanilla beans. You could save a bottle to compare it to the following year’s edition, but…nah.
