Jackie O's (2018)

oh my god.. I'll start the line tomorrow morning!

 

You will find me sleeping in the parking lot (both before and after)

 

C'mon guys, just plop a slice of thick cut smoked bacon into your CG, and maybe a dollop of maple ice cream, and be done with it

Name a "bacon" beer you all truly loved. I guess MBCP isn't bad but it really isn't that bacony either, with more sweet maple syrup than anything.

Since brewers tend to use smoked malt to imitate the bacon flavor, they'd probably have to alter the recipe of BM. Plus, Jackie O's already has a barrel aged smoked beer, Woodburner Bueller? ...Bueller? It's not as smokey as I expected the first time I had it, but it's actually quite good. Maybe they forgot to add the hype flavor to that one

 

Guys I was just at JackieO's and Brad had just broken into your mom's house, stolen all of her artificially flavored keurig coffee cups, and dumped them straight into the barrels. He also threw in a bucket of the bacon grease, peanut butter, and fried cheese curds from in the brew pub kitchen. It's the collab variant with Funky Buddha and DuClaw called BBBBCPBFCCM.

 

All the jokes. Meanwhile I'm here quietly hoping for Turtle Fudge.

 

Is it sad that this still peaks my interest? (I think that is a rhetorical question). It must be the cheese curds.

 

Time for a case count

 

At the brewery or in my trunk?

 

This years' Champion Ground is so much better than last year.

 

is it just me or does Champion Ground feel thinner this year?

 

This sounds horrendous.

 

I thought it tasted great on tap. I'll check it out of the bottle tonight. Not sure why all the comparison to last years. Maybe people have amazing memories or keep notes but all I know is this beer is money.

 

So after being spoiled by Jackie O's BA program has anyone else felt like a lot of barrel-aged beers from other companies just aren't as barrel forward and don't have the barrel integrated as well?

Now that the weather is cooling down I've been getting into more BA beers again and been kinda disappointed except for the Jackie O's offerings.

 

I guess there are a lot of cicerones out there...

 

I agree they definitely transfer a lot of barrel into their beers. I'm actually speculative that raw whiskey might also be added as it's generally so much more potent than other breweries.

 

That would be illegal.

 

I didn't know that. How so though?

 

There are restrictions on what ingredients can be used in beer and what processes can be used to make beer. Dumping a distilled spirit into beer is illegal for any commercial brewery in the US.

 

I see. I'd be interested in reading that law if you can find reference. Even so, if whiskey saturated barrels are allowed then saturating another more porous medium to add to the barrel would presumably skirt that law.

However jackie o's gets so much whiskey in there it's impressive and I'm a fan of it.

 

It's a TTB thing, basically it says you have to submit the specific recipe and ingredients of your beer if it contains anything but those in a list of approved "traditional" ingredients: https://www.ttb.gov/rulings/ttb-ruling-2015-1-attachment-1.pdf. Then, the TTB determines if you can sell your product and what special labeling stuff is necessary.

For example, you have to submit recipes if you use extracts. That's so they can check and make sure you aren't adding anything harmful or anything that would violate their definition of what a "beer" is. Adding anything with alcohol would mean your product could not be approved as beer. There may be some malt beverage category it could be called, but it's def. not a "beer".

Spirit and wine barrels, oak chips and staves can be used for aging as long as they don't add discernible amounts of alcohol. So obviously there's some grey area around what is "discernible" and different barrels have more residuals but straight-up dumping liquor or wine into beer would never be legally allowed.