School me on Bourbon Barrel Aging

As someone said here, a lot of it has to do with the nature of the base beer. ABV, residual sugar, and generally amount of more robust flavors. Imperial Stouts tend to mask a lot of bourbon character because of the amount of strong flavors and residual sugar present. Lower ABV and beers with less sweet/roast/chocolate flavors tend to show the bourbon much more and in a harsh way. IMO the bourbon tends to meld with stout and barleywine flavors much better even when the flavor is strong. Though BCBS has a very strong bourbon flavor, it melds very well with the base stout and is not very harsh. I've had pale ales and other similar beers aged in bourbon that even though the overall bourbon flavor is probably less per ounce, there aren't as many other flavors to mask it and the bourbon seems more intense and harsh.

 

Correct. There have been bourbon distilleries outside of KY, but I think they all closed. However, Jack Daniels meets the legal definition of Bourbon, but they prefer the Tennessee Whiskey designation instead.

 

I don't think No. 7 (Jack Black) does, but Gentleman Jack certainly does. Select may as well. They love the Tennessee Whiskey moniker too much to call their whiskey by the name of a KY county.

BTW, the law that defines Bourbon (and Tequila) is part of NAFTA.

Edit: It looks like No. 7 is technically a Bourbon too.

 

Yeah, I suppose it is subjective. BCBS is a 14% beer, which is why such a potent bourbon flavor works. Black Tuesday is the same thing.

My counterfeit CBS is going to be in such high demand, I'm going to be holding out for counterfeit 'loons only.

 

Good point - I probably shouldn't have dropped the BSDAs in there - it's the paler ales that may not benefit from the dark spirit of bourbon. Would love to try the beer you linked. Bourbon Cru. It just sounds so right... wow.

 

I have a high-res scan of the Don Quijote label and several bottles of Lamvinus! But you'll need to add to that trade, fake Don Quijote is way rarer than fake CBS.

 

OMG - just realiized - the Allagash Curieux is a bba tripel - and it's one of my faves - http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/4/16909 - I suppose there's no limit to which beers can benefit from bba - it's all in the brewmasters' hands...

 

. Is Jack Daniel's a bourbon?
Jack Daniel's, is not considered a bourbon because it is charcoal-mellowed -- slowly, drop by drop, filtered through sugar-maple charcoal -- prior to aging, which many experts say gives it a different character. The process, called the Lincoln County Process, infuses a sweet and sooty character into the distillate as it removes impurities. But up to and after the charcoal filtering, the Jack Daniel's production is much the same as any other Bourbon. Jack Daniel's and George Dickel are two fine Tennessee Whiskeys though neither can be called bourbon.

 

"Whiskey sold as Tennessee whiskey is also defined as bourbon under NAFTA[12] and at least one other international trade agreement,[13] and is required to meet the legal definition of bourbon under Canadian law,[14] but some Tennessee whiskey makers do not label their product as bourbon and insist that it is a different type of whiskey when marketing their product."

Marketing is a beautiful thing.

 

Bourbon has strict laws as to how it is to be labelled as such,

"51 percent of the grain used in making the whiskey must be corn. Bourbon must be aged for a minimum of two years in new, white oak barrels that have been charred"

This is in the BATF regulations for controlled spirits. It's a common thought that bourbon has to be from Bourbon county Kentucky which is a fallacy, and it's a stickler point to anyone from the area who will scoff at places like New York, Virginia or anywhere else that bourbon is made in the US is not "real" bourbon. But it's still bourbon so long as it adheres.

Adding some sort of other alcohol like a bit of whisk(e)y to a beer in the barrel probably comes off as fortifiying and is probably not allowed (think of fortified wine, Port is a good example).

Bourbon (like many whiskeys) has characters, much like beer, which vary. Caramel, toffee, vanilla, oak, chocolate/cocoa, pine, maple, brown sugar, marzipan, honey, carbon, tobacco, you name it...

as for the JD argument, most bourbons are chill filtered and go through some type of charcoal, however JD has their "Lincoln county process"... still "Tennessee whiskey" is to differentiate their product as something "unique". JD doesn't want to be bourbon, but it could pass as one based on the regulations, but that's not their thing.

"Tennessee Whiskey" is not defined in the Code of Federal Regulations. The only official recognition of the term is a letter solicited by then Jack Daniel's president Reagor Motlow from the Treasury Department, acknowledging that Tennessee Whiskey is distinct from bourbon."

hope this helps, if you really want to know something about bourbon whiskey I strongly suggest you read a book by Chuck Cowdery called "Straight Bourbon". It's a very good resource which I go back to often.. (the above quote is actually from him, from a forum he particpates on discussing bourbon).

As for bourbon aged beers, my experience with them is some are phenomenal, some are ok, and some just don't cut it. Could be anything, quality of the barrels (condition,charring, whiskey it held), brewmaking, storage, there's so much involved in what makes a good barrel aged beer, that there probably are too many factors to consider what makes them great, or why one didn't work out. In my opinion.... dot dot dot...

I just like the really good ones

 

Keep it on the Fantasy Beer Trading subforum please.

 

At least one brewmaster who ages beer in whiskey barrels has told me during a brewery tour that there is a small amount of whiskey left in each barrel to keep it moist. Probably not several cups, maybe one or two. Perks of the job, methinks.

 

Heres the other thing. Every single barrel is unique. Even if its from the same distillery. Woodford makes a point to say this. They even let you sample from all their barrels, pick your favorite, and bottle it with your own label. God doesnt even wanna know what that costs. So you could use lets say for example Woodford barrels, and each barrel is different. That also plays into it. Hell why every batch of a BA beer is different.

 

When I went to a Southern Tier Brewing Co. event, they had Bourbon Barrel Aged Back Burner Barleywine (aged in Buffalo Trace I think). It was a bourbon bomb, overwhelming. I asked the Owner Phin about this and he said that when he got the barrels from the distillery some had pools of bourbon still in them, and gave the beer a strong flavor.

Now I'm not sure if any legal lines were crossed and it was not bottled or made available outside the grounds, but it was interesting.

 

anyone have knowledge as to whether any brewerys use their barrels just once or do they reuse the same barrel mulltiple times? I would guess barrels do get reused and if so, it follows that the first batch aged in a barrel will have the most intense bourbon flavor compared to those that follow.

also, just to chime in on Angel's Share...in addition to the volume of liquid that soaks into the wood, a majority of the Angel's Share is due to evaporation. To know why some seriously aged whiskeys are so expensive, consider this: After 23 yrs in the barrel, only about 1/5th of the original liquid volume remains (I read this about Pappy Van Winkel). Similarly, Elijiah Craig says aging their bourbon to 18 years loses 2/3rds of the volume to the Angel's Share. Whiskey is so magical!

 

I stand corrected!

Correct. Not sure how many times they get used...maybe 3 or 4? By the end of the barrel's use, you hardly get any bourbon at all. Fulsteam in Durham put their Southern Lager in an old barrel just to play with it, and it was all oak with just the tiniest hint of bourbon...barely detectable at all.

 

With only two months in the barrel the only thing being absorbed into the beer is the bourbon flavor. It isn't given enough time to breathe in and out of the food. That could very well be why the bourbon is so strong. You starting getting upwards of 6 months or a year or more the oak and charred characteristics of the barrel start being imparted into the beer thus mellowing out that very intense bourbon flavor. 2 months is a little short for bourbon barrel aging.

 

The beer you put in there does matter, but one thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the length of time the bourbon (or whatever the spirit) was aged will also have an effect on what characteristics the beer will receive. Distillers can request which characteristics they want they're cooperage to impart on their spirits. So the source distillery does matter when it comes to flavor. How quickly a brewer can fill a barrel after it's been emptied by the distiller will also affect the flavor.

Also, barrels from a distillery don't necessarily need to be cleaned. They've been holding sanitizer for a few years. Some brewers clean. Some don't.

 

Breweries age beer in bourbon barrels differently, but my experience is using only barrels straight from the distillery, and filling them just as they come, without any cleaning or dumping. Also, longer times make for mellower character. Over a year, and the booze really mellows out and things get smooth. Short aging times mean hot alcohol and simpler flavors. Think of the aging process of beer and then imagine that happening in wood. Also, the barrels themselves have a lot to say in the overall character. Many breweries aren't the best at dealing with oak barrels, so those that reuse barrels can get into some trouble. I'd venture to say that most of the top-rated beers are single-use only.

 

Well, sure, but they then have to get to the brewery. That can be a long time. I had a conversation with the owner of 50-50 who said that sometimes they get barrels with mold growing in them, and they have to be thoroughly cleaned. Maybe that's atypical.