Wild Barrel Brewing - Inner Circle

If they would have waited a year to launch this, when they had aged beer ready, a lot of people would be happy and renewing for a second year right now. They shot themselves in the foot by jumping the gun.

I still haven’t tried a single beer from them yet. I think I’ll try to have all the beers they’ve released so far shipped to me soon so I can at least see if they’re good or not.

 

Christmas either came early or very, very late, depending on how you look at it.

 

The beers sound really good. Now that all the stouts are done and released I think I’ll have them ship it all to me. I just got an email saying they have 13 bottles for me and they can ship them whenever. I can’t believe I’m actually going to try beer from these guys haha.

 

The email:

Hello barrel-aged beer fans,

The barrels have been busy and so have I. We now have several projects labeled and ready for you. There will be 4 different beers for you to pick up starting next Sunday, Nov. 3rd. There will be draft available for purchase if you want to try the beers while you are at the pub. We do have a limited amount of extra bottles available for Member purchase and they are on a first come first serve basis, if interested please inquire when you are picking up your bottles as to what beers we may have additional bottle of for sale.

These stouts will close out the stout portion of your Membership. (5 stouts + the bonus bottle) The remaining bottles will be sours.

Barrel Aged Stouts: Note, these are not pastry stouts, these are barrel aged stouts that have been blended to bring out the flavors that the barrels presented naturally.

• BA Bottle Logic Blend 11.5% ABV. - A barrel aged portion of the Bottle Logic beer that we brewed and laid down into a Woodford Reserve barrel in July of 2018, blended with two component barrels "Coconut" and "Vanilla" Both were Four Roses barrels, one had hints of coconut and one had wood vanillins. I added toasted coconut to the first and Madagascar vanilla beans to the other, the combination accentuated the existing notes of each barrel and the addition of those to the blend ended up giving it a chocolate soft serve silkiness that you taste right after the initial bourbon barrel notes. It ends with a subtle hint of nutty coconut on the chocolate soft serve that arrives as the beer warms in your glass.
  
• BA Winter Stout 11% ABV. - This is a blend using one of the first barrel of Four Roses that we filled. I blended in components from a barrel that I added Thai Cinnamon sticks to and the Coconut barrel that I had added toasted coconut to. They final result is one that has wonderful notes of bourbon barrel, chocolate, spice and a slight tropical note, reminiscent of the winter holidays, but in a bourbon barrel stout way.
  
• BA White Buffalo 11% ABV. - This is nearly a single project, using a couple of Buffalo Trace barrels that tasted of barrel aged stout, soft milk chocolate and hints of wood vanillins. I blended in a little of the "Vanilla barrel" to accentuate the wood vanillin note and the final blend has notes of bourbon barrel, chocolate dipped chocolate soft serve with crushed oreo cookie like crusts in the finish as it warms up. (No oreos were harmed in the making of this beer).

Barrel Aged Sour:

• Black Elderberry 7.5% ABV. - Based on a beer I have made before, this was one of the first barrels of sour that we laid down in December of 2017. It has dark rich dried fruit notes reminiscent of a dried fruit rollup, sweet dark grape skins and tart blackberry jam and soft leather notes. It has a tart finish that leaves a prolonged fruit note on your palate.

Brewers Association logo - I just wanted to note that the BA logo was placed incorrectly on these labels and it has been corrected on the template for all future bottles.

The next sour is a blend of two different barrels that each held both fresh and dried strawberries. When I blended them together I suddenly tasted notes of kumquat and tangerine zest and hints of apricot skins as well. The beauty of blending, sometimes you get more than you invested initially. As soon as this project is ready we will let you know.

See you around the barrels!

Preston

 

One thing I’m confused about. He says that these are not pastry stouts, they’re blended to bring out the flavors that the barrels present naturally but then he says he added toasted coconut and vanilla to one and Thai cinnamon sticks to another. Am I reading that right? Did he add flavors pastry stout style or are the flavors from the barrel naturally?

 

Nope, you are reading that correct. They aren't "pastry stouts," but then he added vanilla, coconut, and cinnamon to the barrels. Not sure how they aren't pastry stouts then.

The only other way I can figure is that he might have added the adjuncts to empty barrels to try to get the adjunct oils to soak into the wood, cleaned all the adjuncts out, and then put the beer in... but that would not make a whole lot of sense...

Yeah, I'm as confused as you.

 

Pastry stout generally implies not just the use of adjuncts, but a significant amount of residual sugar. If the stouts are reasonably dry, there's nothing about the rest of the description that would imply they're pastry stouts.

That aside, I think he could've done a far better job with the descriptions but I suspect mediocre copywriting is not a primary issue for most members at this point. Suffice to say, nothing in this thread has made me regret passing on a membership.

 

I'm still kind of annoyed Woodshop is at Wild Barrel this year even though I'm not a member and I did really like their beer at Woodshop last year.

I understand the issue of finding a space that will accommodate the event though.

 

What's an imperial pastry sour? Saw wild barrel strawberry cheescake imperial pastry sour at my LBS. Looks like a wild ale with milk sugar? Yikes...

 

So, how have the member beers been? I slithered my way into a refund, so I haven't tried anything besides that "I - Barrel Aged Stout" trainwreck.

 

I haven't let a single beer get anything more than a month of extra age since they allowed pickups. So, with sub-1month on the bottle...meh...I don't think they are worth the time we have spent complaining and finally getting them.

That said, I didn't have the single barrel that was provided by Holiday so not sure how that one turned out.

 

The Holiday Wine Cellar bottle wasn't very good. I didn't have very high expectations and was still let down a little.

 

Because the $60 is shipping & handling. They give extra care to handling their members.

 

Anyone try these stouts yet and have any opinions?

 

I stopped in Saturday evening and had the BA White Buffalo and the Hipster Samoa Cookie and wasn't impressed with either. The BA White Buffalo was thin and tasted like they just poured some whiskey in it. Hipster Samoa was alright, but didn't taste much like the description.

 

They only had the BA White Buffalo and the BA Elderberry on tap... White Buffalo was so flat I couldn't really get past it. The BA Elderberry was pretty good

 

I tried them both out Friday night and would have to agree with you on both beers. I’m not in WB membership but if I was, I wouldn’t be too excited getting a bottle of BA white buffalo.