Let's talk about barrel aging beer

If you want a stout to have significant barrel flavor, the barrel should only be used once. If, however, you want it to taste like Dragon’s Milk, feel free to reuse the barrels.

I’m joking…kind of. New Holland used to discuss (maybe they still do, not sure) that they use their barrels multiple times. I don’t know how many, but their stout is filled at least 3 times as I recall.

Most breweries only fill a barrel once. If a barrel is filled twice, it is often for “3rd use” beers a La 2013/2014 BCBBW.

Because refilling does increase the potential for ‘bugs’, sanitation is a concern. I have no idea what New Holland does.

 

Thanks for the heads up here as I had no idea about this but I definitely want to try that.

 

I always wondered how a barrel is prepped for aging beer-especially if it isn’t still “wet” from having been recently “dumped”. What are the sani protocols prior to filling? Also, what about foeder aged beers? Some of them are big and some are massive. If the brewer uses them to impart flavor, how many batches until it doesn’t anymore? Then what? Does it simply become a holding tank? I’ve heard that they can be sanded or scraped down to reveal new wood but that seems tedious and impractical. Especially for the bigger ones.

 

@Luscious_Malfoy @bread_c @MattOC All probably have a good handle on this and can provide expert responsss. (I always thought the foeder was primarily for letting the beer ferment and evolve as it picks up some of the past culture still present rather than picking up flavor from the wood. It occurred to me when summoning these 3 that I don’t actually know.)

 

Further clarification; Bourbon distillers are not allowed to reuse their barrels again for bourbon.

 

no expert but i imagine the more freshly dumped the more bourbon flavors get imparted. however, i also imagine getting barrels super freshly dumped is a trick task.

as far as foeders go, i think that allows for oak to make an impression on a beer but more importantly it allows for reuse since they’re large enough to stand inside them and be rinsed. they also allow for solera method brewing by being large enough to pull from who’ll still leaving some beer behind to continue to age and develop.

as far as reusing barrels, wine barrels for saisons and wilds get reused all the time but bourbon and other spirit barrels don’t (and i’m guessing here) most likely due to infection issues and also not being able to impart such bold spirit flavors after one use.

 

Don't quote me on this, but all liquor has to be mixed with water to get the proof down to drinkable limits. I don't know if water is added before or after aging, but if after, that will increase the number of filled bottles per each emptied barrel.

 

Well, I've always felt that "barrel-aged" terminology is insufficient - before stainless steel, glass-lined iron or steel, aluminum and other modern materials, ALL beer was fermented and aged in and served from wood. BUT brewers did not want infections or wood flavors and so vessels (fermenters, aging casks, most kegs) were lined with pitch or coated with lacquer, varnish or other protective linings.

Those methods preserved the wood for decades and, in the case of pitch, also added a flavor - liked by some, disliked by others. No self-respecting brewer of the past would have ever wanted their beer flavored with spirits or wine (at least, that's my opinion).

Gone up in price since the days (1960s-1980s) before brewers used them to flavor their beers with non-traditional methods.

Remember walking past these stored outside a Rickel's one day in the early 1970s and getting a strong whiff of whiskey. Stopped and pulled the top one of the nested stack and surprised to see actual whiskey in the bottom of the second one. After that, whenever I saw them for sale, I'd always go "take a whiff" (as Lead Belly sang--- about something else).

 

I work at a small brewery but here is how we prep new barrels for being filled:

-We fill the barrel with steam for an hour or so. This swells up the wood staves so they are water tight, helps rinse out any loose wood pieces, and sterilizes the barrel (to a degree).
-We let it cool then purge the barrel with CO2 to get all the oxygen out.
-We use a bulldog transfer arm to fill the barrel from the bottom up.
-We typically put Imperial Stouts in them so it is fully fermented beer and the alcohol and IBU's help prevent bacteria and wild yeast from growing.
-We periodically check the beer for infection and to see how well it is picking up barrel character.
-If we are not going to use a barrel for a while we use sulfur wicks to keep wild yeast from growing inside it. They are paper strips with a coating and you light them on fire and seal them inside the barrel. The smoke kills and impedes anything from growing inside the barrel. It should be done once a month or so if you are going a long time without filling it.

 

How barrels are used by brewers will vary based upon the specific breweries and their production goals.

I suspect that for smaller breweries they will typically just use a barrel that contained spirits once since a subsequent reuse will have a diminished flavor of the spirit (e.g., bourbon).

Larger breweries perhaps have more flexibility since they have warehouses containing hundreds of barrels and they can blend the product as they choose.

@PapaGoose03 mentioned that even with a brewery using a barrel for the first time there is a chance of infection. From my conversations with some commercial brewers they have mentioned that something like 1/3rd of their barrels could be ‘dumpers’ due to contamination. The costs of this wastage needs to accounted in the prices of the brands.

Cheers!

 

Do you have an estimate for what percentage of barrels will suffer from infection/contamination?

Cheers!

 

It's added after. There is an entry proof, then there's a dump proof. Then there's the proof it is bottled at, unless it is a Barrel Proof (BP) offering.

 

That's part of what started this discussion - how much does moving aging facilities to cheaper cost of living areas impact cost per ounce? For both production cost and retail.

Was this cost savings why Boulevard aged Parabola for Firestone Walker the first year they were under the same company?

 

Like I said we are small, we only fill 6-8 barrels a year but our clean beers have always stayed clean. We're thrifty so we get a wet barrel and we fill it with a stout, age it about 6 months and it's ready. We'll refill it with a stout and let it age a year for similar results. And then lastly we'll fill it with a lower abv sour ale and age it a year for a subtle barrel character. I doubt many other breweries use a barrel 3 times.

 

I did read an interesting article about the life of a bourbon barrel. It followed the life of a barrel that was used at a distillery, then used at a brewery, then a coffee roaster aged beans in it, then a maple syrup producer aged syrup in it, and then finally a local BBQ place took the barrel and smoked meat by burning the oak staves.

 

was going to say, has to be after dumping because you have certain lines of bourbon that don’t cut it with water (Blanton’s Straight From The Barrel comes to mind)