A new batch of Rare?

I spoke with Brett Porter at WTF? in Denver last Friday. He said that 45 year old bourbon barrels were currently being used to make Rare 2, which would then be followed by King Henry 2. Think he was just spinning the rumor mill?

 

Oh boy, this one is going to be epic (the thread that is).

 

Thank God! This is was a slow day at the office.

 

Rare 2 is for sure. Gonna be out in 2 years according to my buddy that works at GI.

 

It is 45 year old Heaven Hill.

 

So the Instagram caption says 12 yrs, the tweet says 25 yrs and random guys say 45 yrs. Ok.

 

https://twitter.com/WBBeerBuzz/status/391218696892329984/photo/1

 

Yeah the guy who said 12 year corrected himself to 25. Now it looks like 45 actually? I think we can agree 12 is not correct. 25 or 45 either way this should be good.

 

Looks like barrels from multiple years:

https://twitter.com/southloopbeer/status/391248750057758721/photo/1

 

Isn't the age of the barrel a lot less important than how long it actually had whiskey in it? Is it that these have probably held whiskey three or four times?

 

Typically if not always, a barrel is only used once for whiskey and bourbon etc.

 

I thought so. I guess I just don't get why the age of the barrel itself matters.

 

A barrel that held bourbon for 3 years vs 21 years will have a greater impact on the beer being aged in it

 

I suspect the 'age of the barrel' is just another way of saying how long it held bourbon/whiskey.

 

To be called bourbon, the spirit must go into barrels that are charred and never used before. Other whiskeys (especially scotch) can use barrels that previously held other spirits.

Regardless, these held bourbon for a long time. The resulting beer may be awesome. It may not be. I know that 50/50 also got some really old barrels recently.

 

Also, only an idiot brewery (see Nebraska) would use barrels that aren't freshly emptied.

 

So is there some 45 year bourbon that just doesn't exist on the market (yet)?

 

And thus begins another thread where everyone's an expert on barrels.

Tashbrew really should have a thread on here stickied at the top of each forum and upon registering for BA you are forced to read it, like at least three times, and then upon entering any thread regarding barrel-aged beers you're prompted on whether or not you need to re-read that thread again. Would save for a lot of overly repeated questions and back and forth half-informed responses.

/suggestionforumpost

 

Rarely Rare

 

The age statement on a bottle of whiskey refers to the youngest whiskey in that bottle. My bottle of WL Weller 12 year is a blend of bourbons of different ages (most likely) but the youngest bourbon is 12 years old. Aging whiskey isn't like baking a pie -- you don't necessarily put whiskey in a barrel and, precisely 12 years later, have an aged whiskey ready to bottle. Maybe it needs more time. Maybe you give it more time but it doesn't react like you planned and instead of letting it age longer, you blend it in within something younger. Only the distillery could say for certain. But, point being, just because a distillery has whiskey that's 45 years old, it doesn't mean that they will bottle it or sell it.

 

They should change the title of the new batch to Bourbon County Uncommon.

 

I'll hold out for Bourbon County Mythic Rare

 

Thus truly making craft beer Pokemon cards for grown ups?

Edit: kodt sneaks in with the Magic: The Gathering reference...

 

BA should have a sticky note explaining Bourbon...

 

If this is $100 I won't be surprised.

 

No bourbon is aged for 45 years. The reason is, as immobilize pointed out, by law bourbon has to use new, charred oak barrels. The new barrels would impart too much wood to the whiskey making it undrinkable. I'm sure some of the older distilleries have a barrel that has been aging bourbon for that long, just as a experimental thing, but I bet it tastes awful.

Also, keep in mind that the date on the barrel doesn't exactly tell you how long the barrel held whiskey, on account of not knowing when the barrel was dumped. That 79 barrel could have been emptied for quite a while. I'm curious as to how the length of time between the barrel being emptied of whiskey and being filled with beer effects the final product, due to evaporation & the wood drying out.

I'm also not sure the age of the bourbon has that much to do with the final beer that comes out of the barrels. I have no evidence to support this, but I bet if you took barrels that have held bourbon for at least, say, 8-10 years and put the same base beer into them and also barrels that have held bourbon for 23-25 years, you'd get almost the same end result.

The thing that makes Rare different from regular BCBS is the length of time the BEER is in the barrels, not the whiskey. And yet I wait for the inevitable threads saying the first batch of Rare is far superior to the second, due to the Van Winkle barrels being superior to whatever bourbon came out of these barrels, likely Parker's Heritage or Elijah Craig.

 

ISO
ten char

 

Damn you IN-BEV!!!
Oh wait...

 

Love it when people have "friends" at the brewery.

 

I just like having friends in general. Brewery friends are a bonus.

 

You, me, and everybody else on this site would wait in line for several hours to pay $100 for this.

 

35 year old heaven hill, aging 3 years

 

False. I have had enough Bourbon County to know that I don't NEED this.

 

Gimme some beer aged in the 2nd Release Parkers, the 28 Year old BBN. Daaaamn son.

 

Bourbon County Brand Black Gold Stout?

 

Rare 2.0 - The Legend of Bourbon County

 

Rare 2: Bourbon Barrel-Aged Boogaloo

 

Rare 2: Judgement Day. So many beer nerds will perish during this release.