Bourbon Barrel Trend

if i recall, the guy at 50/50 sort of started the craze, with goose island either following shortly after or even preceding it. i don't really know though.

beers have been aged in barrels forever though.

 

I know Great Lakes started doing it in 2005, well probably more like 2004 since it was released in 2005. I believe Goose Island was also around then also for retail. Russian River started way before then but those were not bourbon barrels.

 

Greg Hall did it a Goose Island to celebrate their 1,000 batch in 1992. He took it to the GABF where it was disqualified for not 'fitting' into any category. They ran out of the brew, however, before the festival started (or so it goes).

 

I know Three Floyds Dark Lord goes back to 2004, but I don't believe it was the first.

 

The guy at 50/50 (Todd Ashman?) was a Floosmoor long before and they are only a bit over 5 years old. Goose Island still may be the first prominent example.

 

You mean you didnt start the trend? Add that to you list of facts on your profile!!

Cheers!

 

sorry, i don't remember his name. he posts on BA, and i'm pretty sure he's claimed to have been barrel aging beers around the time GI started doing it in the 90s. i'd link you to the thread, but old BA threads all in limbo. he may have come back and credited greg hall, i'm not really sure.

do you remember what i'm talking about? the posting i mean. he had sort of a habit of coming on here and posting somewhat defensively. i can't remember his name because none of the breweries he's worked at distribute to new england, and he hasn't come up in homebrewing stuff i look at.

regardless, it's definitely true that GI was doing it well before it became a trend.

 

I had a buddy who was brewing in Seattle around 1997/98, and they used bourbon barrels- made a whole production of tapping the barrel in front of the customers and everything. So it was definitely a 'thing' around that time, and he got the idea from somewhere else. I'm sort of surprised it was being done in 1992, actually- I would've figured a few years after that.

 

yes, that's definitely him (handle jogs my memory). if he started barrel aging in the late 90s then i can't imagine anyone else prominently started it before GI.

obviously cantillon and other lambic producers were barrel aging long before, but not with bourbon barrels.

 

I vaguely remember some discussion but not enough to adequately comment.

Much like most everything in the beer realm, I tend to go with the "there is nothing new under the sun" thought process for the most part. At this point, and for the most part in modern brewing, everything that is new had already been done at some point in the past. I do not want to take away the innovation that many modern brewers have brought to the table but I generally do not agree that most of them invented anything. This should not take anything away from what they have done either.

Much like the conversation regarding who invented the DIPA or Black IPA, CDA or whatever. I do not think we are going to find one agreeable answer, but more than likely a few equally appropriate answers.

 

boy, with all this talk, I could sure go for a backwoods bastard right now!

 

I guess another question is when was a bourbon barrel beer (stout, likely) first bottled? When I first started talking to my friend about what he was doing we both assumed it would always be a draught-only product. The assumption was that there wouldn't be any way to tell just how stable the bottles would be, or even if they would be stable. For the most part, I guess that thing has worked itself out over the years. But, was anybody bottling the stuff in the 90s or did that take a while to get going?

 

i'm completely converted to accepting the "like" functionality, from this thread. were i not stopping to give this note about "like" functionality, i have nothing more to say about it, beyond "i agree" which would be a pretty useless post. now, instead of just not responding (as if i got up and walked away, like "fuck this discussion"), i can just "like" and move on. i was unconvinced before (too facebook-y and popularity based, though i started using the "like" button immediately).

since i posted already, yeah, true innovation is in short supply--as it should be. creativity is great, but innovation is like making a new skeleton. elaborating the new technique / idea / etc, that's the meat on the bone. endless innovation would be like buying 1000 books and reading the first page only of each.

 

I was bourbon barrel aging homebrew while in the womb in early 1986, so it might have been me.

 

I was standing in line to barrel age beer way back in the early 90s. It's old hat now.

 

This is the correct answer, still the best Bourbon BA program 20 years later

 

This trend needs to end. you might as well pour bourbon straight in your beer.

 

pfft try 84

 

BBA zero calorie sports drinks. Oh yeah, the future.