Are barrel aged beers flat?

Someone more educated than me might give a better answer, but I'm pretty sure barrel aged beers are either put it in the barrel after initial fermentation or fermented in the barrel, but it doesn't really keep its carbonation. I think they either give a second fermentation after barrel aging and before bottling, or they bottle condition them.

 

Some are still on purpose (select lambic), others can carb in the barrel, others can be force carved after barrel aging. It just depends.

 

They are barrel aged flat, after fermentation is done. There will be some residual Co2 left from the fermentation process, something around .8-1.0 volumes, but it will be significantly less once it's pumped into the barrels. Between the movement, and the nucleation points in a barrel, the beer will be pretty close to flat. If anything, when you taste it even from the fermenter, will taste "flat".

They will bottle condition, or force carb it in a brite tank once it's removed from the barrels and blended in some cases.

 

This is correct. I would say that most (if not practically all) commercially available BA beers are carbonated.

 

Your close with most of this, but do tell, how would they carb a beer in a barrel. A barrel isn't airtight at all. You need pressure to get the co2 into solution, so you can't carbonate a barrel in the barrel to the point where it has any real carbonation.

Keep in mind, that most styles of BA beers are stouts, and stouts to style, will have less vols of carbonation than a typical beer would be.

 

In my experience, most bourbon barrel aged beers are pretty flat. Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes the brewer will subject it to an additional fermentation, some are bottle-conditioned, and sometimes the beer gets infected(!). In any event, I never consider low or non-carbonation to be a defect when reviewing a bourbon barrel aged beer. I'd be interested in hearing how other BAs view this.

 

I was considering wilds with that statement. Depending on how aggressive fermentation is you could definitely get carbonation.

 

Agreed, read my post above. There will be some residual Co2 in solution from fermentation, but once the beer is moved or has a temp change, it will start to come out of solution. An oak barrel isn't gonna carbonate a BA beer like one would consider ample carbonation.

Wild and sours aside, there are also other BA beers that fall into the same category.

 

I also don't rate a BA beer porrly for lack of carbonation. It may be on purpose, it may be due to stressed yeast unable to bottle condition, or a lack of viable yeast from aging so long. Also, cask conditioned ales are les carbonated than theirr counterparts, I throww the barrel aged beers in a similar category.

 

this is exactly the answer. aged flat, whatever carbonation naturally arises in the barrel is trivial and trivially lost, then the beer is bottle conditioned (refermented with some sugar in the bottle that adds neither flavor nor an appreciable amount of alcohol) or force carbed-- unless it's served still on purpose (rarely seen outside of lambic, but sometimes, e.g. xyauyu).

 

Really? Not even one Lost Abbey joke? Man, this place has changed.

 

I totally had one lined up

 

Most breweries are force carbonating their barrel aged beers. Most of us find that carbonating to a low volume is better than carbonating to the normal 2.4 volumes of co2 though. At my brewery, our barrel aged wee heavy is 1.5 volumes of co2.