Let's talk about barrel aging beer

Yep. They still choose how high they want the proof to be at entry, which ultimately effects everything down the line. But water is certainly added at the end to hit the targeted proof.

I couldn't tell you exactly how long before bottling this occurs though, or what they do to homogenize the mixture after adding water before bottling.

It's also easy for people to get confused between single-barrel and barrel-strength (or barrel proof). Regular Blanton's is a Single Barrel (SiB for short) product, but it is still diluted to 90 proof. Straight from the Barrel (Under the Blanton's label) is uncut, bottled at barrel proof, and also a SiB offering. It's easy to get confused.

 

Very interesting. I heretofore did not consider that a second use of the barrel but with extended aging would have similar results.

Thanks for that input.

Cheers!

 

At Philly Beer Week 2012 I attended a Goose Island event at a local craft beer bar (Capone’s in Norristown, PA). Matt Capone kindly introduced me to the Goose Island barrel guy (John Laffler) of that time and we spoke for 20-30 minutes about brewing, mostly about the barrel aging aspect since he was in charge of the barrel program.

Below is something I posted in a previous BA thread on this topic:

“I had a long conversation with John Laffler who at that time was the Goose Island Barrel guy. During that conversation he mentioned that the barrels were only ‘good’ for one iteration of beer aging. This was an ‘issue’ for him since he was having difficulty in obtaining the proper barrels; they solely like to use Heaven Hills Bourbon barrels and they were not readily available at that time (and the costs were drastically rising). If Goose Island could reuse barrels, that would have been a big cost savings (and a less headache) for them.

Based upon the above conversation with John Laffler, I personally would not reuse one the Goose Island barrels. Of course, these barrels may be OK for others.”

I think it is important to emphasize this conversation occurred in 2012 and the Goose Island barrel aging process may be different today.

Cheers!

 

Questions about barrels and barrel-aging come up on a regular basis in this forum as well as in the Homebrewing forum. If anyone is interested in reading further, here are links to a search that I did in each forum. You can kind of tell from the thread titles if it's a topic that you want to read further.

Beer Talk forum: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/search/121478707/?q=Barrel&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=39

Homebrewing forum: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/search/121478712/?q=Barrel&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=8

 

It doesn't mean that the cost goes away, it's just less. Let's just say I have an 1000sf facility. In Denver that would be leasing out at close to 3k a month after NNN gets figured in. 36k a year for a small brewery that may see 500 bottles go into distro.

 

Exactly my point. To go back to my previous example, rent in Kansas City, MO is much cheaper than most of California (Firestone Walker). But does this change in cost get felt by the consumer? Does it contribute to increases in price, ala Fremont, or are there increases based on different criteria?

One things for certain - Parabola was the same price for the consumer when aged in MO as it was aged in CA, but I'm curious how much it impacted the actual production costs.

EDIT: I'm just airing out this thought because I've been pondering on it for awhile. I don't know that we have enough industry members from big breweries to really weigh in on it though.

 

Second use (I guess technically third use) barrel aging does happen. The brewery should distinguish this, IMO, as the bourbon notes are less prominent with each subsequent use. The only example that comes to my mind where I had the same base beer aged in first use then second use barrels was COAST Barrel Aged Blackbeerd, specifically with Blantons barrels. In back to back years, 2012 and 2013, COAST used the same barrel(s) to aged their yearly BA release. COAST was, probably still is, a small time brewery and obtaining Blantons was a big score (also there weren’t 18 million BA stouts available nationwide at that time either), and they used it in back to back years. They did market the 2013 as second use Blantons barrels (COAST always has been the preeminent example of class in the craft beer world so it’s not like they were trying to pull a fast one on consumers). Both batches were great, the 2012 remains one of my favorite BA stouts of all time, but you could 100% tell the difference in terms of strength of bourbon and barrel notes and the 2013 did not match the original.

I still have one 2012 and 2x 2013 in the cellar, been several years since I last dabbled in them. Maybe this weekend I’ll pop one of them.

 

I just did some math, which is what I should've done in the first place. Had to make some assumptions, but here goes.

One barrel is ~36"x30", or 7.50 sqft. Assuming one barrel produces 150 750mL bottles - a low end assumption.

Commercial square footage is $4.89 (rent) in Kansas City, MO. Seattle square footage is $11.32 (rent). Seattle's is a net number, and may be slightly inflated by including office averages.

Price to age one barrel one month (7.50 x sqft cost):
KC = $36.675
Seattle = $84.90

Price to age one barrel one year (monthly rent x 12):
KC = $440.10
Seattle = $1018.80

Price difference per 750mL bottle, assuming low end fill (150 bottles) and aging one year:
KC = $2.934
Seattle = $6.792

Prices reduce when stacking barrels. Not sure how high you can stack barrels. I think the highest I've seen is ~6, which would reduce costs here significantly.

Pretty rough numbers, but it does somewhat satisfy my question on how square footage costs impact barrel program costs, and how the costs may be passed along to the consumer.

 

If you're interested Allagash has a yearly sale of their barrels. IIRC they go for about $80 each, you have to pick them up at the brewery.

 

That neglects CAM or NNN in the rent as well which can bring the rent up another 25% in some instances.

 

BFM in Switzerland supposedly has barrels that are many decades old that they slowly blend into their beers.

I'm fairly certain that was just a marketing thing/company celebration. FW has a huge separate barrel facility down the road from their main brewery. You would also have to factor in the cost of shipping thousands of gallons of liquid that far, plus the impact on quality, plus the risk of loss from an accident, plus the administrative cost of that new facility coordinating emptying the shipping vessels into barrels.

There may be some benefit for a brewery that brews in a high rent urban area to house their barrel facility in a lower rent space a little out of town, especially if they could afford to purchase a space, but I can't imagine the savings are significant enough to justify shipping beer thousands of miles for barrel aging.

 

Another factor to consider is climate. I know that many bourbon makers consider the temperature swings over the year to be advantageous to them, and once saw a PBS special about bourbon where they stated that several producers intentionally sites their barrel facility up on a prominent hill where temp fluctuations would be most exaggerated.

I believe that breweries tend to want a more consistent and lower temperature environment for aging. So a coastal location like FW or a brewer in Seattle might have serious HVAC advantages over a facility in the middle of the country that deals with greater temperature extremes.

 

And also neglects market changes that @Harrison8 brought up. But retroactively those beers cost less to produce 10 years ago, specifically thinking about Fremont here.

 

Awesome answer! Thank you!

 

Few folks have touched on this. I don't believe it's super common anymore (or maybe it never was), because of the increased risk of infection. At least that's my novice understanding. High risk, high reward though IMO...

Enter your favorite brewery , Goose Island. GI used to do this with Bourbon County Barleywine. Went bourbon, then BCBS, then they used the barrel again to make BCBBW. That all crashed in 2015 with the big infection issue and they never did it again. It makes for a great BA barleywine IMO and is a dragon I'm often chasing if I find it. Last beer I'm aware of that did this was Roaming Elephant b1 by More Brewing. They aged the barleywine in barrels that previously held Mehndi. It was fantastic the time I've had it. I'm sure there are others out there.

Speaking of, anyone aware of other recent examples? That way I can pereseverate on it, then break down and try to trade for it. Thanks!

 

was thinking Perennial Blue Ridge was aged in barrels that previously held Maman.

 

I think only the very first BCBBW used old BCBS barrels. might have been done again in a more recent release.

Also, I think it was "proven" that the infection resulted from dirty bottle caps (or at least something in the bottling process) and not the barrels which was why you could get BCBBW '15 on draft that was fine but the bottles were....off.

EDIT:
if you look at the packaging on this vintage it's got the 1 (bourbon) 2 (stout) 3 (barleywine) logo on the bottom which didn't appear on subsequent vintages IIRC but i am old and forgetful. Aslo interesting that they call it "third use barrels."

 

Below is a link to an article published June 17, 2016 which states (with emphasis in bold by me):

“Goose Island has said that Bourbon County Coffee and Barleywine were both infected with Lactobacillus acetotolerans, a bacteria strain that sours beer. (Bacteria in beer does not harm humans; it simply alters flavor.) The scope or cause of souring in Bourbon County Brand Stout and Proprietor's Bourbon County Brand Stout is yet to be identified, but laboratory tests have indicated a drop in pH, indicating the presence of unwanted bacteria, the brewery has said.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/dini...-beer-infection-food-0622-20160622-story.html

Maybe sometime after June 2016 more has been learned about the source of infection? Maybe some other BA will provide a link?

It is my understanding that infection for batches of 2016 (and beyond) was no longer a problem since Goose Island chose to pasteurize these beers.

Cheers!