With the ever rising style trending I am wondering now after watching a Greggs Beer Review video and something he touched on, when doing these BBA aged stouts and other beers or other type of spirit fermenter vessels for that matter are they freshly used barrels ? Seems that these too me are probably in high demand.
Sometimes, yeah. But I've also seen/heard of barrels being used from distilleries that had been defunct for 10+ years as well.
If a beer is termed BBA, then yes I would expect it to be aged in a fairly freshly dumped barrel. And barrels may be becoming scarce, I don't know, because of all the BA beers being produced now. But there's more bourbon being produced today, also. Think about it, for it to be bourbon, it has to be aged in a newly made, charred, American white oak barrel. So there's more barrels being produced than ever before. Breweries just have to fight it out with scotch distilleries, maple syrup makers, hot sauce makers, soy sauce brewers, and coffee roasters also wanting to get their hands on them. So everyone should do like me, drink more bourbon so the price of all these BBA delicacies doesn't get too ridiculous. Keep them coopers a cooperin'!
Clown Shoes did this with 40 year old Jamaican rum barrels for Hammer of the Holy. Still had phenomenal barrel characteristics.
To be a bourbon they must age it in brand new fresh barrels. The Bourbon distillers started selling the used barrels to the Scots after prohibition to the pointt where by 1981 97% of scotch was aged in used bourbon barrels. That has dropped a litttle and the Scots are using more used maderia, port and sherry barrels as well as wine barrels. So there are plenty of used bourbon barrels to be had and it is cheaper to ship a used bourbon barrel from Kentucky to Chicago, New York or San Diego or where ever than to ship it Port Ellen, Scotland.
You misunderstand what they mean by "40 year old." That does not mean the Rum was removed 40 years ago... It means that the barrels aged the rum for 40 years before being emptied.
I thought bourbon barrels were easy to get for brewers because bourbon barrels can only be used for bourbon once.
That's true, but as I've learned the guys in Scotland like them too, for their scotch. So easy might be true depending on how much you want to pay, I imagine demand has driven the price up.
Bourbon barrels will eventually fall apart if they do not have a liquid inside. Freshly dumped barrels are also crucial. Freshly dumped barrels can hold gallons of bourbon in the wood.
