Let's talk about barrel aging beer

That's another thing I've been thinking about during @Harrison8 's discussion of transporting barrels: how does having the barrels being bounced around in the trailer for a few days affect the beer?

Also, it might not be feasible due to the wight. Off the top of my head, I don't know what a full barrel weighs, but the maximum weight of an 18 wheeler is 80,000 pounds. Generally, you can in the area of 44-45,000 pounds of product into the wagon. Can a brewery put enough barrels in each truck to make it worth it?

From what little I know, a brewery doesn't like to move a barrel around, even on-site, unless they have to. If the barrels are on racks, you need a forklift to move them. There's a fair bit of physicality in using barrels that needs to be kept in mind.

 

Fly them? You think the prices for these bottles are high now, call Kalitta Air and see what they quote you for flying them.

http://www.kalittaair.com/

 

Some quick googling found that the average airfreight rate is +/- $5 a kilogram (2.2 lbs). A typical keg (1/2bbl) weighs about 170 lbs, and whiskey barrels seem to hold about 50 gallons (so 1-1/2 kegs), a bit over 500lbs, not counting the actual barrel and pallet. so, our one barrel of stout is gonna be about $1100 bucks to get from LA to KC in the example we're using (and I'm sure there's distance rates as well, the farther it goes is probably gonna be more expensive). You've gotta get it to and from the airport as well, so add that cost.

If we're putting it in 22oz bottles, we'd get about 5 bottles per gallon x our 50 gallons (before spillage and waste during the actual bottling process), at best 250 bottles. That's a bit more than $4 a bottle just to fly it from FW to Boulevard.

 

I know that Cycle Brewing in Saint Petersburg, FL uses a tunnel pasteurizer. I’m sure there are other examples not already mentioned.

 

Why is there talk of people transporting full barrels around? Who is doing that?

 

Posts 3 & 4 is where that started. Apparently FW did it at least once.

 

They barrel aged one (I believe) batch of parabola there and I think bottled it there too. I've seen zero evidence that anyone was shipping full barrels around. I would think they would just truck the liquid in a tanker rather than move the barrels

 

@JackHorzempa Great Divide pasteurizes their beers as well after the great yeti infection of 2009.

 

That was my thought too. I do wonder how well a fermented beer (with plenty of CO2) would fare in a tanker going any distance more than local.

 

Do fermented beers come out of a barrel with much CO2? I would think they'd be basically still at that point.

But really, I think they brewed, fermented, barrel aged, and then bottled that batch of parabola at boulevard. I don't think that there are many (any?) breweries moving finished beer great distances to barrel age it.

Although, now that we're talking about it, I do believe that Private Press brewing out of Santa Cruz is essentially just a barrel facility. I think that all of their beers are brewed (and fermented?) at other area breweries, some a good jog over some serious mountains on highway 17, and then trucked over to their Santa Cruz barrel facility where they are aged, blended, and bottled.

 

Alesong here in OR has a similar setup.

I’m reminded of the De Garde/Jester King/Sante Adairius Elements of Composition, and De Garde’s announcement of the beer/project and kinda bashful about the price, explaining that due to the round-robin aspect the beer had been triple-shipped and taxed. What I took away from that is any beer “finished” in another state is an expensive logistical pain in the ass.

 

Sierra Nevada then-brewmaster Steve Dresler, 2015 interview:

 

This post in the thread 2017 Firestone Walker Parabola said:

And while the label (inset, yellow border below) listed both breweries, the 2017 TTB COLA was only for the Boulevard brewery.

 

The average cost of storage for a barrel depends vastly in what part of the country you are in. The second question would be impossible to answer unless you were a logistical employee of one the breweries. Storing in India and China is ridiculous on many levels, mainly it would cost more to ship, manage, quality control,etc.. And the US is a really big country-

 

Beer is just a product. It can be brewed anyplace. The company I work for produces it’s goods all over the world. Crazy as it sounds it’s still much cheaper to make things in China, Vietnam or even Poland. We ship from there and still make a large margin even after the cost to ship across the world(and shipping costs post covid)and then disperse across the country.

I would think having a brewing facility in China and shipping containers to America could at some point be feasible and end up making more money for the brewery.

Enjoy

 

As is often the answer to these kinds of questions; It depends. There should be some CO2 ( I think it would be rare that a beer is fully still), but the level would vary. Depending on the size of the brewery, they could either pump it back into kegs or a brite tank to get the level of CO2 they want before packaging. Now, in our hypothetical of moving it around in a tanker, would they charge the beer before filling the truck, or at the packaging facility, I don't know, but my gut response is that you's probably want to ship it still.

DeuS, the Bier de Champagne, is brewed and fermented in one place, then shipped in a tanker, to the aging facility, where the bottles are filled, and charged with champagne yeast. So, shrug, I dunno?

 

Wouldn't the CO2 just be filling any void space that still exists in the barrel? I doubt that a wooden barrel is rated for much pressure; a lot of bungs would be popping.