Barrel Aged Beers

damn the trade forums would suggest something very different than the respones im seeing here...

 

Barrel Aged is a hit or miss for me.

 

Big fan here, I love them!

 

I've enjoyed BA beers in the past but if they were to disappear and a barrel aged beer was never seen again I would not miss them one bit tbh.

 

I like bourbon or whiskey barrel-aged beers if they have malty base beers, but lighter and hoppy beers are not my cup of tea. But some of the malty ones are that good either. OP, depending on which beers you've had, maybe they were some of the not-so-tasty ones.

 

Definitely agree with you on this. Malty Beer In a Barrel...good. Malty and Hoppy beer...good. Malty and Hoppy aged in a Barrel....not so good. Somethings are just better on paper.

 

If done right, it's hard to beat when aging stouts and porters. The problem is most breweries are doing it now and some are not that good at it.

 

I actually conducted a poll on this earlier this year. The results are pretty interesting.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/barrel-aged-or-nah.359519/

 

Yeah, they've kind of replaced DIPAs and sours as the go to beer geek whales. I happen to enjoy them, but I also love a well done pilsner.

 

I like all beer styles equally, but I have trouble finding anyone who wants to talk about a Dortmunder Export or English Mild. Must not be cool enough for them.

 

The trade forums are a very small fraction of the craft beer community as a whole.

 

You would disappoint quite a few bearded flannel shirt men. All that swirling and sipping and sniffing, all gone.

And I agree.

 

Before the advent of metallurgy, weren't most all beers aged/stored in wood, likely oak?

 

Some are incredible. Some are not. None the less, I only like to drink them occasionally. I never drink more than 1 in a night and often will only have 1 over the coarse of an entire week. It's a specialty thing imo.

 

I enjoy them, but the novelty has worn off. I think one reason I enjoyed them as much as I did was because there were only a few and that note was unique. Now everyone and their mom has one and the difference between most of them isn't that big. I still like some of the best/most unique examples, but the rest get a big 'ol "meh" from me.

 

I'm a huge fan of BA beers, but I totally agree with you. The biggest turn-off to me is when a beer explicitly tastes of bourbon; I want to get a full-bodied, creamy presence from my BA beers (when I say beers, I almost exclusively mean stouts and porters, for the record), but if I wanted to drink whiskey (or whatever liquor the barrel held) I would do that instead.

With that being said, no, I'm not sick of them. For whatever reason (SCIENCE!) I tend to find that barrel-aging my favorite stouts takes them to an entirely different level, so it's always welcome, as long as it's done right. When it's done wrong...I'll pass, for sure.

 

You could barrel age cow shit and I'd camp out overnight in the snow to be the first to get my little girly hands on it.

 

Ten-fidy is one

 

I like how fast this thread devolved into reverse-beer snobbism. "Flannels and neck beards and waiting in lines! LOL!"

 

I like BBA beers but I think a nice oak BA beer is better than a BBA. Oak IPA or Stout is really good. Let the stout sit a year or two and it becomes a vanilla coconut shake. Some BBA are a mess. The good ones are good but are they worth the extra $, I dont always think so.

I find myself buying less and less BBA beers. I have had a wine barrel stout and it was good, a bit tart and I like that. Would like to see more wine barreled beers. I do not like wine but the flavors work well for me in certain beers.


Enjoy