Firestone Walker is launching its first beer club: Brewmaster’s Reserve, eight curated collections of small-batch beer releases shipped to your door (if you live in California).
Rack AeriAle, a nitrogen draft-dispensing system that updates the barrel-dispensing systems of old with new technology, allows beer from barrels to be chilled and carbonated on the way to the glass.
Beginning with the Walking Tree’s Barleywine from the year prior, the 2017 barrel-aged edition of Barnacled Manatee spent eight months in French oak red wine barrels from Napa.
An Imperial take on Funky Buddha’s Last Snow, a Porter that’s brewed with coconut and coffee, Last Buffalo has a warming alcohol hitting 11.5 percent alcohol by volume and a lush, full-bodied mouthfeel you’d find in a souped-up adult coffee drink.
How Barrelworks, Firestone Walker’s sour and wild beer program, got its unlikely start from an under-the-radar side project by two brewing professionals who had previously dedicated their careers to eradicating beer-spoiling bacteria.
When Gun Hill Brewing Co. opened in February 2014, it was the Bronx’s first production brewery in over 50 years—since the Rheingold facility closed in the 1960s.
In search of a new flavor profile, brewers turn to gin barrels, which can add herbal citrus, botanical notes, vanilla sweetness, and oaky depth to certain beers.
Bierschnaps originated in Bavaria, where brewers with on-site stills often create a house spirit from leftover beer. Recently, more breweries outside of Germany are experimenting with the beery spirit.
Increased demand for barrel-aged beers and the ability for breweries to dedicate resources to long-term projects has 2017 poised to be the year of the wood cellar.
BJ Seidel of Goodkind in Milwaukee, Wisc., suggests pairings for the neighborhood bar and restaurant’s rotisserie leg of lamb with lemon zest, vinaigrette, and roasted beets.
Thanks to the Kickstarter-funded Oak Bottle, anyone can age even a single bottle of beer (or wine or spirits) in hours to the exact level of infusion desired.
Two hours north of Montreal, this 5-barrel brewpub is housed in a 150-year-old building that once served as a general store. Its small town of Saint-Tite also hosts a rodeo every September.
At Orpheus Brewing Jason Pellett acts as an evangelist for beers that push drinkers’ palates, and helps carve out a local market for sour and funky flavors among more casual beer drinkers.
There’s a growing wine-beer movement across the country, from the coasts of Oregon to Midwestern prairies and even Texas hill country. Brewhouses stacked high with barrels are increasingly looking and acting like wineries.
When Saffell and Walters had the idea for Foeder Crafters of America, they didn’t really know much about foeders, large oak tanks built for wineries but coveted by breweries such as Rodenbach in Belgium, New Belgium in Colorado, and now a growing number of smaller American breweries intent on making sour beers.
The beers that have shocked and awed fans and made the Cascade Barrel House a destination for locals and tourists are the collaborative offspring of owner Art Larrance and brewmaster Ron Gansberg.
Adventurous brewers are now setting their sights on a relatively unexplored aging vessel: the tequila barrel. Will they be a short-lived novelty, a reaction to the bourbon derivatives crowding the market, or are tequila barrel-aged beers what’s next in wood?
Since 2009 Galway Bay has grown from supplying one bar with two beers to supplying nine bars in Galway and Dublin. Much of this success can be traced back to 2012, when the partners hired a 21-year-old biotechnology graduate with no professional brewing experience.
