Barrel-aged beers are nearly a subculture in relation to the craft beer world. Generally daring and intense, these beers command consideration with their complexity, strong style, and sometimes excessive alcohol content material.
When envisioning a beer that’s been aged in a barrel or impressed by one other non-beer beverage, preliminary ideas normally flip to bourbon or whiskey. However there are many beers available on the market which have been rigorously aged in rum barrels, brewed with the addition of wine grape should, boosted from spending time in a tequila barrel, and even impressed by the traditional Japanese beverage sake.
Wine
Dialed-In IPA (with wine-grape should) | Trillium
Victor | Allagash Brewing
Temptation | Russian River
Blended Media | Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
Golden Canary | Block 15 Brewing Co.
The Street Much less Traveled | Two Roads Brewing
For Vinnie Cilurzo, proprietor and brewer at Russian River Brewing Firm, wine barrels have at all times been his first alternative in relation to ageing beer due to a drive to make use of native assets. Meaning partnering with close by enterprise house owners within the bustling Sonoma County, Calif. wine scene.
Cilurzo believes that usually, wine barrels have a extra delicate contribution to beer than spirit barrels reminiscent of bourbon or whiskey. “It’s extra finesse pushed, which I like,” he says. “When utilizing wine barrels, there sometimes just isn’t an excessive amount of of an increase in ABV such as you’d see with spirit barrels.”
Together with imparting some delicate wine taste, the wooden acts as a house for the secondary yeast and micro organism the brewery makes use of for these particular beers. “Getting older beer in wine barrels is a course of that sometimes takes longer than spirits barrels. That is additionally as a result of it takes a while for the Brettanomyces yeast and micro organism to do their work,” Cilurzo explains.
For his first barrel-aged beer, Temptation, Cilurzo opted for Chardonnay barrels for an understated affect on the blonde ale. The brewery’s Consecration, a bitter darkish ale with black currants, is aged in bolder Cabernet Sauvignon barrels.
At Trillium Brewing in Canton, Mass., wine grape should is added on the finish of fermentation for all variations of Dialed-In Double IPA. “This step permits for the retainment of advanced vinous aromas and flavors that intensify and complement the totally different hop varieties in every iteration whereas additionally offering for a lighter, drier DIPA expertise,” defined Matt Garstka, communications supervisor.
The idea for Dialed-In started in 2016 to have a good time Trillium’s third anniversary. “Having beforehand experimented with the mixing of wildflower honey in one other one among our hoppy choices, we acknowledged the massive potential for innovation and taste impression in the big variety of wine grapes out there,” says Garstka. One among their all-time favourite fragrant hop varieties is Nelson Sauvin, grown in New Zealand and named after the distinctive Sauvignon Blanc-like white grape character imparted throughout brewing. “Naturally, we noticed this simple connection and landed on our first iteration of Dialed-In to characteristic Sauvignon Blanc grape juice in a closely dry-hopped Nelson Sauvin DIPA.”
Sauvignon Blanc grapes improve the depth of tropical, fruity aromas and flavors the brewery goals for on this model of Dialed-In. Moreover, easy sugars within the wine should are absolutely fermented out, offering for a crisper end. Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Moscato, and Riesling have additionally supplied distinctive taste profiles in a number of the brewery’s favourite recipes so far.
Rum
Imperial Darkish ‘n Stormy Ale | Nice Divide Brewing Co.
Rum Barrel Aged Porter | pFriem
Dragon’s Milk Rum Barrel-Aged Stout | New Holland
Black Tuesday | The Bruery
Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout | Cigar Metropolis
Imperial Awakening | Indignant Chair
Demise by Coconut | Oskar Blues
At pFriem Household Brewers in Hood River, Ore., casks for his or her rum-aged beers are sourced from Barbados, Puerto Rico, and St. Croix. “Rums from these places have a tendency to be extra impartial and supply a constant and traditional rum taste profile,” believes Kyle Krause, pFriem R&D brewer and lead blender. The oldest barrel they’ve ever encountered was from 1955.
Rum barrels current a singular problem in that they’re usually outdated and in tough situation by the point they’re obtained on the brewery, Krause says. “Rum distillers most frequently use ex-bourbon casks that, as soon as stuffed, spend the whole lot of their lives in open-air rickhouses in a tropical local weather,” Krause says. Rum distillers aren’t certain by labeling legal guidelines to make use of new oak, so casks are reused again and again, he explains.
Moreover, these casks are sometimes saved upright, drying out one of many heads, doubtlessly for many years. Krause says it takes a superb quantity of effort to coax these barrels again into form earlier than they’re secure to carry clear beer. “Even then, the proportion of casks misplaced to leakage is considerably greater than different manufacturers,” he says.
New Holland brewer Mark Erickson echoes Krause in lamenting that the rum barrels themselves are slightly difficult to work with since they’re usually warped and liable to leakage. “Generally the rum producers attempt to get further life out of a barrel, so that they add wooden chips to it,” he says. There are particular pumps with screens on the inlet for these barrels.
Erickson believes there are particular beer kinds that pair properly with rum barrels.
“I do assume the Belgian and saison-type kinds are higher in rum than bourbon as a result of they have an inclination to have slightly banana taste from the yeast, and extra tropical flavors work higher with rum,” says Erickson, who leads the barrel program at New Holland.
Sake
For the Sake of Ale | Angel Metropolis Brewery
Banryu Ichi | Cambridge Brewing Firm
Stillwater Further Dry Sake Type Saison | Stillwater Artisanal
Sundown Kura | 5 Boroughs Brewing Co.
Banryu Ichi from Cambridge Brewing Firm is a hybrid of beer and sake, brewed in collaboration with the brewery’s buddy Todd Bellomy, founder and Toji (brewmaster) of Farthest Star Sake in Medfield, Mass..
“Our thought was to create a real hybridization of sake and beer, each in approach and elements,” says Will Meyers, brewmaster at Cambridge Brewing Firm.
They started by brewing a 500-liter batch of sake—washing, soaking, steaming, and cooling the rice in batches over a number of days, including koji, water, and sake yeast. “We fermented for about two weeks, then transferred 300-plus liters to a CCV [cylindroconical vessel] and added that day’s wort, which was about 6 barrels of excessive OG [original gravity] wort.” The beer wort was comprised of malted barley and rice that had been mashed at very excessive temperatures in order that common brewer’s yeast can be unable to ferment it correctly.
From there, extra koji was added to the fermentation tank to interrupt down the advanced starches from a excessive conversion temperature. Fermentation took a number of weeks, adopted by a month of maturation, then clarification. Banryu Ichi is served with low carbonation in a five-ounce glass set inside a small picket field referred to as a Masu.
Tequila
Uber La Luna Margarita Gose | Cheluna Brewing
Magarita Gose | Nice Divide Brewing
Benny Tequila Barrel-Aged Mexican Lager | Damaged Bat Brewing
Metzli | Dos Luces Brewery
Nice Divide’s Margarita Gose is partially aged in tequila barrels and will get an additional kick from Makrut lime leaf, lime puree, and Himalayan pink salt.
Director of operations Jeff Martin explains that the method for ageing in tequila barrels is identical as whiskey, however the timeline is totally different. “The most important distinction we see is the extraction of taste,” Martin says. Whereas Nice Divide ages its Barrel Aged Yeti Imperial Stout for no less than one 12 months in whiskey barrels, it could possibly scale back tequila ageing to 1 month on oak.
“Since we’re ageing a extra delicate beer in tequila barrels, we additionally scale back ageing and oxygen ingress—thus preserving the flavour of the ultimate product,” Martin added.
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