I picked up a used 10 gallon rum barrel. My plan is to run a couple beers through it before turning it into a sour beer barrel. My first thought would be to do a Impy Stout=> Eng Barleywine => Eng Pale or Bitter => Lambic. I would be interested in opinions or thoughts you guys would have.
I thought about that. My initial concern was that I would already have 20 gallons of high gravity beer (stout and BW) so a bitter might go faster just in regards to beer stock. A quad would age though...
Do a 6% scotch ale. Ballast point ages Piper Down in Whiskey or Bourbon barrels and its excellent. Quite a vehicle for barrel character and works well with the maltiness of the scotch ale. I'm currently aging an english barley wine in mine. SMaSH with Halcyon Malt (4 hour boil) and EKG hops, 1968 yeast. Basically a JW Lees clone. Will be doing a bit of a solera project with the barleywine for the next six or so months, before hopefully throwing in a dark lord clone I've been working on.
Well, if what comes out of it tastes like rum, you could always use it for firewood. (p.s. I hate rum)
I'd do a stout, scotch ale, wheatwine, or even a ryewine. Then I'd put some lesser beers in there, a porter or something. Use it as long as you can before souring it up.
