Breweries naming which bourbon brand they source for barrel aging

More info the better. At the very least helps keep track of batches

 

Haha Bud is Beech wood aged, (well, they use bleached out beech wood to speed ferment, anyway), but I bet it won't be too long before someone has the idea to use actual beach (drift) wood in beer, everything else has been tried.

 

It actually does make a huge difference. At my brewery, we request Buffalo Trace barrels and we pay a premium for 7 year old barrels if available. Specifically, I try to get ones labelled "Mash B" (not sure what recipe that is for them). We use the first use barrels for a Wee Heavy. The first year we got those barrels by chance and we loved it. The next year, we tried to get Buffalo Trace barrels and they were unavailable, so we used Four Roses and Heaven Hill barrels and the beer did not pick up nearly as much vanilla flavor. The guy that delivered the barrels looked at our previous year's barrels and explained the coding to us and the next year we asked for the 7 year old barrels and paid an extra $10 per barrel since the cooperage had to sort through the barrels in the warehouse to find them. It was well worth it, as the beer had the same bourbon and vanillan flavor that we had enjoyed in our first year producing it.

 

You are probably right that you can't distinguish the brand, but you can taste a difference in the beers that came from different distilleries barrels fairly easily. Also, just because different distilleries own multiple brands doesn't mean their whiskey tastes the same. The char levels can be different in the barrels and the whiskey itself can be a different recipe or aging proof.

 

I also love high west, doesn't hurt it's made in Indiana about,45 minutes away from Cincinnati, so perhaps I just enjoy fresh, local whiskey, lol. I know High West is building in Utah, but afaik, everything that has seen store shelves came out of LDI I'm lawrenceburg, Indiana.

 

I'm surprised that no one as mentioned the Eclipse series from FiftyFifty, given that it really speaks to this question of how much impact different barrels can have on a single base beer.

Some friends and I did an Eclipse tasting several months ago with High West Rye, Elijah Craig 12, Buffalo Trace, Four Roses and Java Coffee, all 2014 vintage. I honestly was skeptical there was going to be much difference, and admittedly, the differences were subtle (Java Coffee notwithstanding). But there was definitely a difference. I think someone else said it best earlier in the thread: the barrel imparts a *difference* but the specific barrel doesn't really seem to have enough impact to kick the beer up or down a notch overall. Case in point: I rated all of them the same, because they ultimately all tasted like barrel-aged Eclipse.

 

Blind tasting?

 

I knew someone was going to ask that, and I'm not entirely surprised it was you ;-)

We opened and poured them initially. It wasn't until later that we went back and had someone pour them side-by-side (while hiding which was which) to compare them directly.

So I guess the answer is "sort of".

 

Barrel aging fascinates me. I think it has more to do with the yearly trickle or re usage to get some world class one of a kind results. This may be the place to ask. I know one brewery who sorta went away from labeling their Imperial Stout as a Bourbon Barrel Aged IS, and now labels it more as a "spent 7 months in reserve barrels" type of stout. Are these unused bourbon barrels? I realize you'd pick up more of a wood character as it ages. It's basically virgin barrels where you impart 100% of the flavors with what you want. It's better than stainless if your goal is to add a bit of character.And then beyond that, each year that barrel will grow its character base.

I hear of some using oak staves to age their beers. They don't note specifically if they are used bourbon or even wine staves. People generally hear BARREL and go crazy. No one really questions.

BARREL aged can mean so many things now.

 

Inquiring minds like to know. :-)

 

some breweries are contractually not allowed to say or print which bourbon barrels they are using. Abita for example doesn't, but it is know that the bottles of the stout earlier this year was Buffalo Trace and the tap room one versions were pappy.
I too did a Fifty-fifty eclipse tasting, the Elijah Craig and Evan Williams variants were a little sweet than the Four Roses and Old Fitzgerald, IMO.

 

I think many breweries are using virgin barrels to save some money. Whether they like it or not, they are doing a decent job. Like I said in my first post. They are vague and merely mention BARREL AGED,so assumptions can be made by the consumer.

The funniest thing I have seen is many assuming a beer was barrel aged in a BOURBON barrel, only to continually note on untappd or in reviews that it has a distinct taste of bourbon. When in reality, it was a virgin barrel. You bring up a good point though. The coconut, vanilla, char, caramel etc.. is a lot of what people pick up on with bourbons, when its the wood characteristics. The same can be said here. Consumers can be tricked slightly by going with virgin barrels that cost less. Both bourbon and beer end up picking up the same sort of barrel notes. I just find it funny that these reviews are very specific about bourbon flavors when it never touched an oz of it.

A brewery needs to do a virgin barrel aged beer, and a bourbon (much like those using other bourbon and whiskey varieties) just so we can see it all side by side

 

Here at Troegs one of the most common questions I get asked on the brewery tours is, "whose barrels do you use for the bourbon-barrel aged beer?" If I only had a dollar for every time I've been asked...

Heaven Hill...

 

First off it's already being done, why do you think people are clamoring for PVW aged brews such as Goose Island Rare and King Henry.

Secondly it's sort of a moot point to me, bourbons have different profiles, but so does the spent barrels/cooperage that they get. Also how long is it in the barrel? How competent are the brewers in making and/or blending the base beer?

There's just too many factors, you can tell me as a consumer what whisk(e)y the barrel came from, but that isn't going to be a catch all palate profile that I expect, nor a possible determinant of quality of the beer.

 

Some of the smaller local breweries have gone the other route and begun identifying the barrels as coming from local craft distilleries' barrels vs. national brands. It likely wouldn't work with a large distro footprint, but finding that the barrels were also sourced locally seems to be an added selling point that is gaining traction.

 

Jack Daniels is a Tennessee whiskey, not bourbon. Filtered through maple charcoal. Similar but not the same.

 

Spelling doesn't matter. County of origin and mashbill matter.

 

That's the difference between "Oak Aged" and "Barrel Aged" like with "Oak Aged Yeti" VS. "Barrel Aged Yeti"