Now that everyone is bourbon barrel aging, is it over?

How drunk are you?

 

Sure seems to have increased in the last year, though there is only so much they can make without a corresponding increase in donor barrels from bourbon/whiskey/rum/etc distilleries. Some brewers are getting more use out of the barrels by shorter barrel times, though such beers often lack bourbon taste even if they have it in the nose. I don't see any issue withe the increase in bourbon barrel aged beers, they're my favorite, and the market seems to be supporting it at the moment.

 

Ha.

It's no where near over.

 

I like them. There is definitely not an overabundance of them. My guess is there aren't enough bourbon barrels to even begin to approach having too many. I think as many as is possible to make won't be enough.

 

As somebody who only drinks beer for the cool factor and doesn't care whether it tastes good, TOTALLY. As of now I'm swearing off those delicious beers. What's the point if it doesn't make me feel superior to other people?

 

Over? Are Pilsners over? Maybe Barrel Aged beers are over for you.

For the rest of the planet they will continued to be brewed, aged, and enjoyed well beyond my lifetime.

Full disclosure, I've never been a "truck chaser", and have never related to you guys.

Have fun chasing the next trend..

 

I kind of doubt it actually. Bourbon is experiencing a massive boom right now and producers cannot re-use their barrels. Much of their used cooperage is sold to scotch/irish whisky producers, which have likewise been growing, but probably not enough to keep pace with bourbon. Remember that scotch/irish producers DO re-use barrels and use a decent amount of other cooperage (sherry in particular) as well.

Anyway, my GUESS is that as bourbon has exploded, the market for used bourbon barrels hasn't exploded quite so rapidly. So the barrels are probably out there if brewers want them.

Now, the availability of GOOD quality barrels is an another issue altogether.

 

Actually, in part because of the time lag created by aging time for Bourbon, used barrel production hasn't really kept up with the demand for used barrels. So the price of barrels paid by Brewers has gone up rather dramatically the last 3-4 yerrs.

 

No, I don't think it is over. Not everyone is using Bourbon barrels or even doing barrel aging. What may be slowing down is the number of Brewers willing to gamble on having to dump part of a batch or who are choosing to try Bourbon barrel aging.

 

Maybe I'm missing something here but bourbon sales are booming, so production lag or no, they're presumably emptying more and more barrels every year...

 

Well I wish they'd make more beer with them then, there definitely is no overabundance of the better bourbon barrel beer bottlings around here.

 

The thing with bourbon-barrel-aged beers is that a whole lot of them (maybe even most of them?) are higher-ABV beers from styles that tend to age well. So having "too many" around now just means plenty of pre-aged bottles hanging out on the shelf collecting dust for the future!

The "everyone's doing it" thing isn't really that bad in this case, compared to styles that don't hold up as well to age where having tons of them available means a lot will end up sitting and getting old.

 

I doubt it. I think BBA stouts will always remain popular. They're just too darn delicious.

 

Look at it this way. There is roughly a 3-4 year time lag, or more, between filling and emptying a new barrel. The number of new barrels that they can get each year from the limited number of skilled craftsmen who make them is also limited. Also the number they can put into use or empty in a given year is limited by barrelhouse space and how the whisky ages in its assigned location for those many months of aging.

So, the number of barrels that can be emptied this year is still limited by the barrels that are ready to be emptied to meet the increased demand. They can limit, but not eliminate, production of high end brands by emptying some barrels early, but they are still limited by that multi-year time lag on the number of those high end barrels. (Not to mention limits on barrelhouse space which is also limited by time and projected whiskey demand estimated some years ago.)

So, yes, they can cope with an increase in sales by emtying some more barrels each year, but they are still playing catch up while trying to ensure the don't overestimate sales 3-10 years from now and get stuck with too much whiskey and/or lots of new empty barrels and unused space in new or existing barrelhouses.

Meanwhile some more barrels do get emptied as demand for empties goes up. But supply is still short of demand and the price of empties available to new customers goes goes up dramatically while the quantity of empties goes up more slowly than the demand and the folks having long term contacts to buy empties (e.g. The Scots who have been good customers over the years) benefit from stable prices for those empties.

The impact on Brewers is that some of the increasing number of new breweries that think they need to do barrel aging either find out they can be successful without it or do it for special, limited production releases only, or they explore the possibilities of wine barrel aged beers, etc. A few established breweries even have eliminated some long time barrel aged brands from their line up to concentrate their limited resources , i.e. empty whisky Barrels, on their most successful brand(s).

The impact on beer consumers is that either you stand in lines for an expensive special release, or you pay higher prices per bottle or you choose to drink something else that you enjoy as much or more.

Lots of interesting complexities.

 

The next trend is cannabis infused bourbon barrel aged beers. ISO Bourbon Barrel Aged White Widow Stout

 

As long as I'm alive Barrel Aged beers won't stop being a thing

 

I have some charred barrel chips that I use for grilling. If the BBA "trend" shows any signs of slowing down, I will soak a handful of these in bourbon and French-press my stouts with them.

BTW, I've done this and it works exceptionally well.

 

I think the idea that demand for a style will decrease with more options is unlikely. The issue that I see is that we're getting to a point where there aren't too many BA aged beers, but there are too many relatively crappy BA beers. This is the obvious result of mediocre breweries jumping on the bandwagon and doing what they hope will get people in the door. With any style of beer, the best of them will stick around forever (or at least over the long term) and all of the average and below liquid will get changed over to chase the next big thing.