Barrel Aged Beers and Pricing

If you say so..., but since few breweries name the distillers they buy barrels from (for some legitimate reasons) I, as a consumer, can only rely on the reputation of the brewery.

Bourbon distillers are already facing a barrel shortage while demand for used barrels continues to rise. The price is going up for used barrels and, eventually, smaller brewers will be priced out. At that point some breweries will have to choose between discontinuing BBA beers or using barrels from “lesser quality” distillers.

 

People who know whiskey are telling you this isn't a thing and I don't know why you're so invested in not believing us.

 

This beer sounds good due to your beers' reputation, your openness on these pages, and my love of salt, but what on earth is a "sea salt barrel"?
Enquiring minds need to know

 

@officerbill , I totally vibe with the assuming the worst thing from marketers but the big gap I see in your theory is that it relies on believing that shady Asian Bourbon shysters are both using wooden barrels if any kind AND parting with them after one use

 

Because I'm a skeptical, distrusting bastard. Barring a list of bourbon barrel sources I'm going to have to assume that some brewers are, or soon will be, saving money by using barrels from, let's call them, “lowest quality” distillers.
After all, someone is buying Ten High, Kentucky Gentleman, and McCormick barrels

I'll grant that it's unlikely a brewery is importing foreign “bourbon” barrels, that was just to point out how a brewery could technically make a BBA beer without using what qualifies as "B" in the US.

 

You could spend a little less time being a "skeptical distrustful bastard" and just do some basic research. The origins of whiskey are not a mystery, there's a really limited number of entities that produce it at scale and information on all of them is easily accessible. You could look up where these things come from:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Gentleman

Sazarac is the producer of Buffalo Trace and a bunch of other top shelf bourbons. They don't make crap.

Cheap whiskey doesn't come from cheap barrels. The cost savings of cheap barrels (if such a thing even existed) is way less than just cutting decent whisky 50/50 with industrial grain alcohol (sometimes way less than 50/50, cheap Canadian or Scotch blends might have 10-20% actual whiskey in them).

 

My last post here.
I'm not talking about the quality of new barrels, I'm talking about the quality of the bourbon that was in the, now used, barrels.

Sazarac distills some good whiskies, I have bottles of Sazarac rye and 1792 bourbon in my bar.
Sazarac may make both Buffalo Trace and Kentucky Gentleman, but they are not the same bourbon and do not leave the same flavors in their barrels after aging.
Even pre-blended Kentucky Gentleman is awful bourbon. Those poor flavors will seep into the barrels making them less desirable for aging beers. Those less desirable barrels will be sold at a discount to breweries looking for an economical way to make BBA beers and those poor flavors will leach into those beers.
You are being naive if you truly believe that no brewery would try to save money by aging in barrels that previously held bourbon that no one would willingly buy.

 

You truly do not know what you're talking about.

 

ISO: RIS aged in Aristocrat or Bowmans Folly barrels