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Scully made its first appearance at the Great Taste of the Midwest in 2009. By the time I first tried it, at the Night of the Living Ales in 2010 (its fourth showing), it was already being barrel aged. “Goose Island took the gold with an oak-aged version of their painfully scarce and truly wonderful Scully,” I wrote at the time. “I accosted Goose Island brewer John Laffler, who was a great sport about it, and he ‘confirmed’ (no journalism actually happens after that much beer, sorry) that Scully is named after Gillian Anderson’s character from The X-Files. Laffler also told me that Anderson worked as a server at a Goose Island pub, presumably while attending DePaul, to which I can only say: I want to believe.”
I think it’s safe to say that I’ve been waiting a long time for this beer to come back around. So fond are my memories, in fact, that I only flinched a little when confronted with its $30 price tag.
Gillian smells juicy and funky, which I guess sounds kind of dirty. All kinds of strawberry come crowding out as soon as you open the bottle, of course, accompanied by apricot, lemon, and champagne. A gentle white-pepper prickle accompanies a spicy, yeasty aroma and something richly earthy and herbal that combines sage, juniper, thyme, cedar, and damp straw. Underneath everything else is a faint tendril of strange funkiness that I’ve struggled mightily to find words for—if I were trying to squick you out, I might liken it to Band-Aids, but I could stay closer to the realm of the edible by saying blue cheese and a freshly snuffed unscented candle. Not the smoke, though. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.
