| "Barrel Aging of Beer" By Jim Attacap Here's one vote for Firestone Walkers' Double DBA as best beer of 2012. It's a fabulous brew aged in bourbon barrels, a practice that is becoming more and more popular. Since the early 1990s, when Samuel Adams was one of the first commercial breweries to put its beer into used charred oak barrels previously used for Kentucky bourbon, a large number of American craft breweries have begun to age beer in barrels that once held American's only indigenous alcoholic beverage, bourbon. In the past aging in oak barrels was fairly typical for wine and whiskey but was a rare thing indeed for beer. The times have surely changed to the point that wood- and barrel-aged beers merited their own category for the first time in the 2011 Great American Beer Festival and had 40 entries. Centuries ago, barrels were the only vessels in which to brew and store beers. Most brewers strove to eliminate any flavorings that wood might impart to the beers, soaking and scrubbing the wood to make the barrels as neutral as possible. In industrialized times, of course, steel and aluminum serve a brewer’s purpose with far less effort and wear than wood. But in the last decade or so, brewers have given barrels another look seeing them not as storage vessels but as tools that can make beer more complex and interesting. Barrel aged beers run the gamut of styles and flavors. Some are dry and some sweet. Some are black as stout and full of toasty malt flavors; others are almost golden, with complex fruit flavors. In some beers, brewers encourage the effects of different yeasts in the barrel, which, in the style of the lambic beers, produce intense sour flavors. In others, the barrels were used primarily to expose the beers to minuscule amounts of oxygen, which when done carefully can add attractive toffee or sherry-like characters to the beer. In still other cases, brewers use barrels that had once contained something else, like bourbon, Scotch, Port or even pinot noir, hoping to impart to the beer trace elements of the past contents. Simply put, oak aging anything imparts enormous depth of flavor and mellowness and complexity. Just think about some of the best, the real premier cru oak-aged wines that you've had. You might not be able to point to exactly why you just love the wine, but you do because it has this enormous depth of flavor. That's what barrel- aging gives beer. A majority of barrel-aged brews tend to be expensive due to the high cost of labor and storage since the are made by hand in small lots. And too, barrels themselves can be very expensive. The majority of these beers are high in alcohol content, such as imperial stouts and barley wines, because they stand up best to the wood. Hoppy beers generally don't do well: Hops' flavor can react poorly to the small amounts of oxidation that occurs in a barrel. How long to age? That is entirely up to the brewer. Some beers may only sit in the barrels for a few weeks. Others, such as Sam Adams Utopias may be aged in multiple barrels for a number of years before they are ready for consumption. The brewer must be careful that the flavor from the barrel does not overpower the flavor of the beer. It's part of their craft and skill. So don't be afraid to try one of these beers, you'll see just what can happen to beer in the hands of a great brewer. |
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