What Took You So Long? Goose Island Shifts Bourbon County Brand Stout to Four-Packs of 10oz Bottles

After an impressive run popularizing barrel-aged stouts on a national retail scale, Goose Island made an aggressive move in 2015, changing the format of their famous Bourbon County Brand Stout and its annual slate of variants to all 16.9oz (500ml) bottles. The craft beer market was at its most invincible point as the new format would, in most if not all cases, give the consumer less (volume) and ask for more (money).

In hindsight, the timing for the switch from four-packs of 12oz bottles and 22oz bomber bottles couldn’t have come at a worse time as that release season would see the biggest barrel-aged infection and subsequent recall of bottles that the industry has seen, forcing the brewery to hand out a significant number of refund checks, including many fraudulent ones.

The next year, the same year that I joined their local competitor Revolution Brewing, I thought for sure that Goose would switch back to their more customer-friendly four-packs to ensure they won back the trust of their customers. They didn’t, so in 2017 Revolution did (in cans), and it took until yesterday for Goose Island to announce the return to four-packs ahead of the 2025 season, this time in slightly smaller 10oz bottles.

I have both questions, and opinions!

Why 16.9oz bottles in the first place?

The move to 16.9oz bottles was, in my opinion, to further premiumize Bourbon County and squeeze more juice ($) out of it. The decision was likely made in 2014 when Goose, and every craft brewer for that matter, could do no wrong.

The beer was underpriced at the time, with four-packs of 12oz bottles in the neighborhood of $24.99. Adjusting the price to its market value would be too big of a shock in one year, and raising the price gradually every year is not a good look either, so the change to a new shape with fancy custom bottles would help distract from the 50% increase per ounce.