Barrel Aged Beers

So, I've been seeing more and more barrel aged beers on the market these days. But a lot of them have been really unsatisfying, as though you take the barrel ageing out of the equation and you wouldn't have much of a beer left over (I'm looking at you, Innis and Gunn).

My question is this: Is barrel ageing beer a worthwhile trend? Or are there too many breweries jumping on the barrel ageing bandwagon and producing lesser beers just so they can have a barrel aged beer in their line-up?

And if it's a worthwhile trend, can somebody please recommend some barrel aged beers that are acutally good?

 

BCBS

/end thread

 

GI BCBS, Weyerbacher Insanity, CW BBBW, GD (Fill in the blank) Yeti, DFH Palo Santo Marron, and Founders Backwoods Bastard are some of my favorites.

 

Abyss from Deschutes is only 1/3rd barrel-aged and it's probably my favorite stout. Comes out in late fall.

 

+1,000,000 for the schmidts gay ale avatar.

 

Firestone Walker's barrel aged beers are pretty consistently awesome.

 

Black Note. Black Note. Black Note

 

That one is hard to get!

 

To me, its annoying to see this trend so widespread as I feel it is a cover up to mediocre beers as you're suggesting, but it is still a very welcome theory if your base beer is already above average. What pisses me off is when companies with a poor base or no history of any base beer comes along and offers a barrel-aged beer. To me, that's a gimmick and completely unwelcome.
Best ones I've had would be barrel-aged Bigfoot, Doom, and barrel-aged Old Rasputin.

 

I'll toss hoppin frog BA b.o.r.i.s in the fray, I thought it was pretty good.

 

I agree with you 100%. Innis and Gunn were the first ones who clued me in to people making mediocre (crappy?) beer and trying to "Church It Up" by barrel ageing it, to make the beer seem better than it actually is.

 

I am not a big fan of barrel aged beers. I drink them but would prefer the base style over the oak,burbon,ect...

 

Some barrel aged offerings are great with complexity--a local example: barrel aged Reedemer-Olde Hickory (tap only) was spectacular and their regular lineup is pretty solid. Some of the BA offerings probably look good on paper but really miss. For the some of the bigger makers: Founder's Doom and GD Barrel Aged Old Ruffian are two of the more really dissapointing offerings but I can't say that the lower offerings have suffered.

As far as smaller breweries, I would rather see these local brewers continue their focus on the quality of their year round offerings as that is what is going keep them in business. Westcoast in SC has really focused on their main year round offerings. I suspect these one-off are much more likely to be break even or have a very thin margins. Sure they need to experiment but no one is going to spend on BA offerings when the daily lineup is marginal.

 

Most of them are not that great, even ones that a lot of people on this site go crazy for. I personally find that sour beers as a whole benefit greatly from barrel-aging. It adds a lot of depth of flavor, and really accentuates wild yeast flavors nicely. A good stout or barleywine in bourbon barrels can be awesome as well, but there are a lot of crappy ones out there.

 

The market will decide. If they sell, then they are worth making. If this sit on the shelf, then they should lower the price, or stop making it. I don't think you can lump all beers in the style and breweries together. Some will succeed and some will fail at selling the beer in question. This should be the answer to any question of this nature for any style.

 

I'll try BA experiments at taprooms. I have no interest in chasing down things like BCBS or BA variants and paying a premium while doing it.

 

I see it as a nice complement to a brewery when they already have a well established regular lineup. I pass up many from breweries that do not have that established lineup. I just don't feel that such difficult to produce beers should be the flagship of a brewery. Unless they become that by being that well done, as is the case with GI. It just seems that the bulk that are well regarded come from the established breweries. Build your base with easier to produce styles first, then venture into more specialized territory while serving both. My two cents.

 

it's worth going for BA beers if you're into whisky IMO. obviously everyone goes ape shit for BA stouts (because they taste incredible yes) but i'd like to see more releases like doom....i thought that was realllllllllly good

 

Why does it matter what the base beer tastes like if the BA version is great? I mean, hell, some of the best BA beers don't even have a non-BA equivalent (see BCBS, etc).

 

BCBS and all its variants, especially BCBCS, and Parabola are fantastic. So is the Jack's Abby BA Framinghammer Baltic Porter.