So I really really love Prarie Apple Brandy Noir. It's probably my favorite beer ever. It's incredibly difficult to come by and pricey, so I thought perhaps I could try my hand at one, but not sure if this is feasible. Freshly dumped apple brandy barrels are difficult, if not impossible to come by. I was thinking of buying a blank canvas 5/10 gallon fresh oak barrel, adding enough apple brandy to coat the insides well. I would rotate the barrel regularly until I was satisfied that the entire insides were soaked with the good stuff. Then brew an imperial porter/stout and age the beer in it for a couple months. If the base recipe is good, does this have ANY chance at all of coming close to the flavors that Prarie's beer has? Somebody say yes, lol. Thanks
Homebrewers are not constrained by the legal requirements that professional brewers are. @EvenMoreJesus has a good point
I like Jesus s idea. There are opinions that say true barrel aged beers can not be duplicated with spirals and spirit s. To get close, I'd fine out what brandy barrel they are using, then use that brandy for the beer or the barrel.
From what I heard from dude's who've procured them, if you show up at Laird's with what you plan to age in the barrels, they'll sell them to you
Recently I bough some peach brandy barrels. When I removed the bungs to fill them, I was shocked by how much peach aroma there was in the barrel. Having been a distiller previously, I can tell you that it is almost impossible to get the flavor of fruit into a high quality spirit. The core flavor comes out DEEP into the tails. At that point, you also tend to get a lot of fusels. Similarly, I love Laphroaig Scotch, but it's undeniably fusely... The peaty flavor is distilled out with the fusels. When I started investigating how the peach brandy barrels could possibly be so peachy, I discovered that the barrels aged brandy that was blended with peach liqueur. Based off the intensity of apple that I've heard described in the Prarie beer, I'd bet it was a similar spirit. Simply adding apple brandy and oak spirals will not likely produce the same thing without having a liqueur in the mix.
I went to the laird,s site. Says they buy whisky barrels and use them for the brandy. Interesting web site. Learned lots about brandy,,,,, 100 prod brandy,,,,,,, yahooooo.
I've tried a few barrel aged beers in the 5 gallon balcones bourbon barrels. I've had some inconsistent success, and while interesting, is never as good to me as commercial versions. When you factor in costs around $50+ for an all grain batch of RIS, and $100+ for the barrel, for an unknown quality six months down the road, it's an easy choice in my mind.
Nah, just a little joke. From what I've heard, they'll only sell the barrels to pro brewers and cidermakers if they approve of what's going in, requiring a sample.
