Bourban Barrel Aged Beers - Question.

It's kind of like a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can have good peanut butter (base beer) and good jelly (barrel), but combining them makes for a treat that is exponentially better.

As for the base beer, I have not seen enough information to know for sure if this is true for every great BBA beer, but a few BBA beers that I know of do not use a standard stout or porter that is on the brewery's beer menu, they brew a special beer that will stand up to the flavor of the bourbon. That's where the skill of the brewer comes into play.

 

Its mostly about the base beer. If you make a crappy base, even if you use high quality barrels and age it the perfect amount of time, it's not gonna taste very good

 

Yes, it depends. Yes, I've had a BA beer that was bad and probably detracted from the overall experience (Hydro St apple brandy-barrel stout). Yes, there are beers that benefit from BA treatment (apparently, the base for BCBS is not great before barreling, from a GI brewer).

 

The beer Kentucky bourbon barrel stout is a great example of putting lipstick on a pig.

 

Don't forget how long it was in the barrel.

 

Some are worth it and some are not. It's hard to predict which BA beers are going to measure up to expectations.

 

This, and you have to have a really good base beer. Putting an average, or below average stout into a barrel will not automatically make it better.

 

Going to reiterate the post about Bourbon County - I read the same thing about the base beer. Same thing for Bell's Black Note - the base is a blend of Expedition Stout and Special Double Cream Stout.

 

Regular dark lord sucks IMO. BVDL is incredible and I'd hate to think it's just the vanilla beans.