Sixpoint to release Bourbon Barrel aged 3beans....

@Sixpoint you should try a series of beers made by The Bruery called Chronology. They brew a beer, the 3 released so far have been an Old ale, Scotch ale and Imperial porter, then they rack it into bourbon barrels. They release the beer in 4 batches at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months and 24 months so we can see for ourselves how much the time in the barrel affects the flavor of the beer. It's a very enlightening experience. The difference in barrel flavor between the 6 month and 12 month is extraordinary. Same goes for the 12 month to 18 month. 18-24 isn't as noticeable but there is a noticeable stronger flavor in the 24. Drinking these beers has proven to me without a doubt that the longer the beer rests in barrels the better the barrel flavor will be.

Chronology 24 Old ale is one of the best barrel aged beers I've ever had. The same beer aged only 6 months in barrels was average at best.

 

That's awesome - I did not know this series of beers exist but I definitely would like to check them out. The Bruery has long made some of my favorite complex, high-gravity beers in existence. They consistently knock it out of the park with those styles.

To take it a step further and in order for it to be an even more enlightening experiment, you'd have to try non-barreled versions of the same beers at the exact same intervals. That way, you can see what impact time is making on the beer vs. time in the barrels. In other words, you need to test correlation vs. causation - there may be some other independent and organic processes that are leading to the evolution in flavor that the wood has no or a limited/partial contributing factor in. The test would prove that.

Barleywines in general are beers that benefit from aging - especially American ones that are more aggressively hoppy in the beginning. We recently offered a barrel-aged and one year old Barleywine at the brewery at our last can release. I believe @frozyn and @jrnyc were able to try it.

@drtth @Squire123

 

Agreed, very enlightening. Have done something similar.

Back in the day Weyerbacher used to brew a stout called Old Heathen which when Bourbon Barrel aged is known as Heresy. (Same base beer with one then being aged in the barrels.)

I was able to assemble 3 sequential release years of some bottles of each and then organize a small tasting group to sample all of them in one evening (with lots of water and unsalted crackers between samples).

We went from youngest to oldest in terms of bottle age and alternated between the Old Heathen and the Heresy released in each year. Each person took notes on the samples and we saved any discussion of the beers until having some food after the tasting was complete.

It was very helpful to being able to begin getting a sense of the effects of bottle aging on the Old Heathen, barrel aging and the effects of bottle aging on the Heresy. Plus it was possible to look at such things as the year old bottle of Old Heathen compared with the Heresy at one and two years of bottle age, etc.

 

so are you just going to leave us in suspense bro? what were the results?

 

Gee. I thought you'd never ask...

It's been a while, but IIRC the concensus was that bottle aging the Old Heathen tended to smooth things out a bit, let the hop flavors become more part the background. The very slight oxydatation over time seemed to create a flavor profile that was indeed different from the freshly bottled. Nobody thought it would be much improved by more than the 3 years of botle aging as the noticable differences from year to year seemed to get smaller and harder to detect. (Which of course might have been a function of saturation of the taste buds, but we were pretty careful to take things at a slow pace and make liberal use of the water and crackers since the whole point was tasting not drinking.) Things were pretty much the same for the Heresy.

But more importantly, from my perspective, was that the tasting seemed to have made it more possible to pick up and identify the various contributions of the barrel, i.e, not surprisingly an overall Bourbon presence was easily identified but the barrel contributions from the vanilla and oak no longer seemed lost in the overall flavor profiles.

 

I hope next Saturday is warmer than today Shane !

 

The extended forecast shows that things are going to warm up a bit this week, which is great. It sucked to have it down in the 20s last Saturday morning - but then again, it only sucks if you are wasting your time waiting in a line.

The beers will go on sale tomorrow (Monday, Nov 13th) at 12pm EST so you'll be able to guarantee your supply then.

This had been mentioned earlier in this thread, but its worth repeating: this is our first line of barrel-aged beers in cans, however we will be releasing more varieties/styles in the near future. These Porters all feature unique ingredients in them, so the emphasis is not only on the barrel, but also the exotic ingredients in each formulation.

We specifically chose our "bean" family of beers to start with because the barrel-aging is an important component for these beers, but not the only component when putting together the overall profile. Keep in mind these beers use the Guatemalan Finca El Injerto cold-brewed coffee, so the coffee component is a major flavor and aroma influence. The 4Beans (which is aged in rye whiskey barrels) has the Madagascar Vanilla bean in the them, and the 5Beans (which is aged in a Port barrel) has the sweet and sour dark cherries in them, as well as the poppy seeds (based upon an original baltic brew).

If you are looking for a beer from us that purely focuses on the spirit/barrel flavor (bourbon, etc.) we will have that for you in a future release. But for now, it does not make sense to conflate this family of porters with a pure bourbon barrel aged imperial stout or other style, as that is not the intent here with these formulations. These family of porters are unique formulations all their own. As noted, we will have one of those (and several more) interesting varieties for you in the future....stay tuned!

@drtth @StoutElk_92 @SawDog505 @DISKORD @Neverdie7

 

It has landed on the shelves in Cincinnati, OH.



Will report back later tonight after I crack one open.

 

that's incredible how fast it was....the shipments to wholesalers just started to go out the past couple of days, so this store must have been one of the very first deliveries! let us know if you can taste the cold-brewed Guatemalan Finca El Injerto coffee...(and on that note, hope you like coffee!)

 

Hit here in Cleveland today, too. Need to stop and grab some tomorrow after work.

 

We definitely have to give some love to our Ohio wholesaler, they clearly have done a great job with the distribution on this one.

The final ABVs for all of the bean beers if you are curious:

3Beans: 10.2%
4Beans: 11.2%
5Beans: 9.6%

@meanmutt @DISKORD @HorseheadsHophead @keithmurray @ericwo

Also, some people asked what the intent/focus was behind this inaugural barrel-aged can release of ours. We approached this the same way we did with Resin, when that was launched six years ago. At the time, there was no regular double IPA in cans around these parts, and that is when we came out with the sleek 4-packs. For the Resin, we always wanted a beer that you could drink easily, and not be overwhelmed by the high ABV or abundance of hops. An essential feature of the beer has to be its drinkability.

The same can apply with the 3Beans here. We didn't want to create a tiny-sipping beer, or a beer you had to struggle with...we wanted a beer that was easy to drink, easy to buy, and easy to love. This can be a difficult task for a brewer when you are making a beer that is over 10% ABV....but it must be done if you want to crack open more than one can in a setting, instead of struggling through a single bottle. Getting the coffee, chocolate, and bourbon flavors just right was the task here.

 

Excited to try it @Sixpoint

The problem I find with so many BBA porter/stout is the thing that most people seem to just want, I guess... The overly intense, over the top barrel character. Finding balance with the base beer, adjuncts and barrel is a delicate showdown. There is a place for those intensely barreled beers, but if a brewery can hit that balance... That is far more impressive than having nothing but the barrel come through.

I look forward to picking this one one, it sounds like a well made beer with a focus on the right stuff.

 

Drinking one now...



Really enjoying this beer...the barrel flavor is subtle, but more noticeable than I expected it to be. Love the level of coffee flavor in the beer.

 

"The problem I find with so many BBA porter/stout is the thing that most people seem to just want, I guess... The overly intense, over the top barrel character. Finding balance with the base beer, adjuncts and barrel is a delicate showdown."

"There is a place for those intensely barreled beers, but if a brewery can hit that balance... That is far more impressive than having nothing but the barrel come through.

I look forward to picking this one one, it sounds like a well made beer with a focus on the right stuff."


Couldn't have said it better ourselves - there is definitely a place for those, but in these series of porters, that would throw all of the formulations off balance. These porters are supposed to be drinkable beers (for 10-11% ABV) where you can actually taste all of the various components of the beer - whether it be chocolate, vanilla, coffee, or any other of the exotic ingredients. The barrel flavor should be evident, but it most definitely should not be overpowering.

For those who actually want the hardcore taste of the barrel without any other flavor being prominent, we do have a couple of beers coming out in 2018 where you will be able to taste a very pronounced Rye Whiskey and Bourbon flavor (two separate beers).

cheers

 

Hell yeah!!!

 

Where in Cleveland did it land?

 

At Mack's @KBlodorn

Planning to stop after work today and grab some if it's still around.

 

I'll be in Iowa for the weekend. I'll have to do a bit of digging for this!

Although I did just notice Resin is on tap in town, so we'll see if I can leave my seat at the bar as long as that beer is flowing.

 

Anybody seen this around Chicago yet?

 

@Webbbeer @Harrison8 @KBlodorn

Have you guys checked the Finder feature of the Sixpoint app to see if it's updated with 3Beans? Might be able to lead you to the Beans you seek.