How to get Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout

What it is

Kentucky Brunch Brand Stout — KBBS to everyone who hunts it — is Toppling Goliath's coffee-and-maple imperial stout out of Decorah, Iowa. It has spent years as the perennial #1 on the big rating sites' top-beer lists, which is a strange thing for a beer almost nobody can buy. That gap between reputation and availability is the whole story: a few hundred bottles a year, one release day, and a line of people who planned their summer around it.

I read its label the way I read every label — off the federal filing. What the filing tells you is real: when the paperwork moves, the release is coming.

The legitimate paths

The lottery

The main door is Toppling Goliath's annual release lottery. Entry windows are announced on the brewery's own channels; winners buy their allocation — historically around $100 a bottle at retail — and pick up in Decorah on release day. That's the entire mechanism. No line-camping arms race, but you do need to be watching when the entry window opens, which is exactly the kind of date that files before it's announced.

The Reserve Society

Toppling Goliath's membership program allocates some of the rare-tier releases to members. Slots are limited and the sign-up window is its own small event each year. If KBBS specifically is your grail, read the society's terms closely — allocation of the top bottle is never guaranteed, but members see the rare calendar first.

Release day in Decorah

Even without a winning ticket, release day itself is a scene: taproom pours of beers that never leave the building, and a town full of people who all crossed state lines for the same reason. If you treat the trip as the prize and a pour as the win condition, Decorah delivers more reliably than the lottery does.

What it typically takes

• A watchful spring — the entry window is short and announced on the brewery's channels
• Travel to northeast Iowa if you win (allocations are pickup, not shipping)
• Around $100 a bottle at retail, per the brewery's own pricing
• Patience measured in years, honestly — most hunters enter more lotteries than they win

What we watch for you

TTB filings move before announcements do. Toppling Goliath's rare tier shows up in the federal register when new labels or variants are coming — Assassin filed there in June 2026, and we caught it the day it posted.