In 1992, Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Co. effectively invented the bourbon barrel-aged stout. As one of the first breweries with the novel idea to put a big, boozy stout into a bourbon barrel, Goose Island created one of beer’s most clamored-for substyles, one to be emulated by hundreds if not thousands of breweries ever since. That clamor has often been directed right at Goose Island’s own take, in particular, of course: Bourbon County Stout became one of the first beers that people were willing to wait in overnight lines for.
In November of 2025, Goose Island will make history again. Its iconic Bourbon County Stout, clocking in between 14 and 15 percent alcohol depending on the year, will come not in the single 16.9-ounce bottle it always has, but in a four-pack of 10-ounce bottles.
“This smaller format is all about accessibility,” says Goose Island president Todd Ahsmann. “Because [Bourbon County Stout] is only released once a year, moving from one bottle to four gives consumers more opportunities and moments to enjoy it — whether that be sharing one with friends, opening one on date night, bringing one camping, or enjoying one at your favorite bar or restaurant.”
Boosting accessibility and versatility is undeniably a net positive. But considering Bourbon County Stout, or BCS, has always been unapologetically bold and boozy, what does it say about craft beer and its consumers today that Goose Island is shrinking the serving size?
“This reflects the broader cultural moment,” says Theodore Schweitz, CEO and peer group facilitator for CPG networking company Drive Wheel. “Consumers are drinking less overall and drinking more intentionally. Smaller packaging aligns with that shift.” Beer’s most famous double-digit-ABV stout downsizing its packaging speaks volumes about how we engage with alcohol now. By adapting BCS to today’s imbiber preferences, Goose Island can keep this storied beer relevant and conscious of shifts in not only how much people want to drink but how, where, and when they want to drink at all.
“One of the biggest changes that came out of COVID-19 is that more people are drinking at home, and with their partners or immediate family rather than in more social environs like a party,” says Aaron Gore, vice president of sales and marketing at The 5th Ingredient, creator of brewery management software Beer30. “We’re seeing demand for different, smaller batching of relatively more intense, higher-alcohol products. It’s not just in beer but in other categories like wine — canned wine, for example, solves the issue of wanting one glass without having to open a whole bottle.”
We know people are drinking less overall in 2025. Craft beer’s OG fans are aging and moving into life stages like parenthood, subsequently unwilling to deal with inebriation, hangovers and more serious, long-term effects of alcohol. Gen Z seems increasingly interested in non-alcoholic, functional and THC or CBD beverages. But alcohol isn’t the only piece of the wellness puzzle driving the ideal beer serving down.
“Once upon a time, drinking 750 milliliters of a beer with more calories than a Hostess cupcake seemed like a good idea,” Gore says. “These days, people want smaller portions of better things. They’re looking to moderate consumption with higher qualitative instead of higher quantitative experiences.” Many beer drinkers still want to enjoy the rich, silky complexity of a Bourbon County Stout, so their compromise is that they want less of it in a sitting. The ability to open a 10-ounce bottle rather than a 16.9-ounce one keeps BCS in the game when consumers are making beer-buying decisions.
“Smaller formats expand the use case,” Schweitz says. “They let consumers create flights, share with friends or sample more flavors without over-committing. It’s about control: controlling alcohol intake, calorie count and even mood…This is especially resonant with younger consumers. Gen Z, in particular, is highly attuned to personalization and moderation.”
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If packaging a higher-alcohol beer in a smaller bottle or can responds to consumers’ desires to imbibe less and consumer fewer calories from beverages, and results in more drinking-occasion flexibility, it seems like we should be seeing this move from breweries industry-wide, right? Not so fast. Some have experimented with the move, most won’t ever attempt it due to major logistical challenges, and other packaging solutions might prove more universally accessible in the long run.
Westbound & Down Brewing Company is a Colorado brewery that has seen success with eight-ounce cans of its higher-octane beers.
“We have a barrel-aged blend of imperial stout and English-style barleywine named School Night that we launched in eight-ounce cans with the intention of making high-gravity beers more of a decadent dessert,” says Westbound & Down creative director Eric Schmidt. The brewery also recently released Faster Horses, a double IPA in the smaller format for “easy packability on outdoor adventures.”
“COVID changed the way we gather around these styles of beers,” Schmidt says. “Gone are the days of having to cellar 750-milliliter bottles of big, barrel-aged, imperial stouts until you can gather a group of friends to justify opening them. We didn’t spend years aging these products to have them sit in cellars even longer. If you want to remove barriers from people enjoying your beers and have them experience your barrel program in real time, smaller-format packaging seems like a step in the right direction. [It’s] more dynamic and fits into the new era of drinking.”
Westbound & Down’s smaller cans have sold like gangbusters, but the math behind this move just doesn’t add up for the average brewery. Canning lines often come with the ability to pivot between the more common 12- and 16-ounce sizes. Investing in updates or entirely new systems to incorporate eight- or 10-ounce sizes costs tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most breweries aren’t making too many beers this high in alcohol to justify the move — are they really going to spend, say, $100,000 to be able to can maybe one regular beer, one seasonal beer and the odd one-off in a diminutive format each year?
“When you’re looking at your ROI, you’re not putting all your beer into that smaller size, so it would be a while before it pays off and there’s a big risk it will,” says Blake Tyers, cofounder of Atlanta’s Creature Comforts Brewing Co. The brewery looked at eight-ounce cans for their boozier beers, he explains, “but it’s too big a risk for a beer style we appreciate but don’t hang our hat on.” Goose Island, meanwhile, certainly hangs a hat or two on its Bourbon County Stout. It’s also a corporately backed brewery with a bigger budget, more resources, a larger distribution footprint and more pull to get products on shelves even in new formats.
Without the weight, history and widespread recognition that’s behind a beer like Bourbon County Stout, there’s too much consumer education left to chance. Tyers points to the calculations shoppers might feel obliged to do when buying a brand new, unfamiliar format. Are they really going to take the time to figure out if they’re paying more or less per ounce? It’s easier and more approachable to stick to a can or bottle size they know.
Size Matters for Beer — What Can We Expect?
A new size joining the chat and becoming somewhat standardized isn’t unprecedented. Sixteen-ounce cans were novel, after all, when they became the patron packaging saint of craft beer. More recently, a wave of breweries have added 19.2-ounce cans to their repertoires. As a single-serve, the stovepipe can boasts a strong sales track record in convenience stores and gas stations, so if a brewery has the kind of distribution reach to get into those accounts, the juice is worth the squeeze. But this only highlights why such a wave of breweries adding smaller cans and bottles is less likely. Tyers points out these kinds of retail accounts are set up for certain sizes — 12- and 16-ounce in bottle shops and grocery stores, for example, and 12-, 16- and 19.2-ounce in convenience stores. A differently sized pack of differently sized bottles or cans could throw a real wrench in the works.
Presumably off the back of the current trend around craft breweries creating their own versions of nostalgic macro lagers — mock-ro lagers, if you will — we’re seeing a rising return to 12-ounce cans. It begs the question of whether a standardization of size could be in the future, where the majority of breweries utilizing 16-ounce cans and the few employing eight- or 10-ouncers meet in the middle.
“We’ve looked at both decreasing and increasing sizes for convenience-store stovepipes, but considering the challenges of converting canning lines and storing the different vessel sizes…we abandoned our original 12- and 16-ounce cans and went to all 12-ounces,” says Eric Gleason, lead of brewing operations at Manor Hill Brewing in Ellicott City, Maryland, explaining the better margin the brewery finds with this streamlined focus. The only exception is their barrel-aged series in 500-milliliter bottles, which maintain margin at nearly a dollar an ounce. Gleason explains 12-ounce cans just make sense now: They’re an approachable, familiar format; they fit on shelves in any kind of retail account; they fit in people’s coolers and koozies; and Manor Hill is hearing from customers that they prefer slightly smaller servings of higher-ABV styles like a double IPA. While specialty smaller cans like eight- or 10-ounce sizes feel borderline gimmicky, 12-ouncers are stable, he says.
Still, Gore predicts the average craft brewery won’t abandon the 16-ounce can anytime soon. For most, that size is still the more financially viable choice because you’re using less aluminum per four-pack — aluminum is pricey and only getting more so with tariffs in effect. He feels that larger, older breweries that tend to focus more on flagships and have wide distribution networks may see the advantages of 12-ounce cans, and their consumers may in turn respond favorably. But smaller, taproom-based breweries don’t stand to see the same gains.
Goose Island’s 10-ounce Bourbon County Stouts, therefore, may remain somewhat of an anomaly. It’s worth noting that the brewery will keep the rest of its BCS variants in their existing 16.9-ounce bottles — Ahsmann says “never say never” on those other variants downsizing, but the process of creating entirely different bottles was a tough, two-year one, and all of those efforts have been focused on the original BCS. The move makes a statement about today’s imbiber, changes around alcohol consumption and increased interest in occasion-based drinking versatility, but the response Goose Island is making to all of that isn’t one most breweries can afford to make.
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