Chicago Barleywine Releases (2023)

I bought a bottle of It'd Be A Lot Cooler If You Did by Hubbard's Cave...I don't recommend you do the same.

It tasted like licking a 2x4 piece of wood with some dill sprinkled on top.

A $26 mistake I'd like to see others avoid.

Perhaps this is not what this thread was intended for, but it left a literal and figurative bad taste in my mouth.

 

All I got is BA Behemoth, OP.

 

I’ll be that guy - just think, you could have had another 4pk of Straight Jacket.

 

I believe HA World of Bog is a barleywine - anyone try it yet? I’ve been tempted.

 

Was going to buy a pack yesterday but couldn’t pass up Before Land Shook.

 

Yes, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Pretty unique in that it's aged in Scotch barrels, but it's no peat bomb.

I may grab more from Half Acre today. It's also on draft at the Beer Temple.

 

I tell you this in hopes the shelves don't all dry up of it before I go buy another.

Penrose The Other Tomorrow is amazing. Gave me flashbacks to drinking fresh BCBBW 2013.

4-pack 12oz cans for around $20.

 

Straight Jacket and Ryeway to Heaven (I know, it's a ryewine) are still available out in the wild.
VSOJ on tap at Flight in Yorkville - damn good tonight!
Where the heck is the Crystal Lake Brewing Boathouse Reserve Bourbon Barrel Aged Barleywine?
Pipeworks Intrinsic Duality came out in December last year, but nothing this year...

 

It's delicious. I don't remember the actual classification of the barrels, but I think they are infact bourbon not Scotch. There's no peat flavor to be had. Just delicious barrel aged barleywine

 

Bog is described on Untappd as, "Barelywine Aged in Single Malt Whiskey Barrels."

 

According to their website, the beer spent "the last 20 months buried beneath the barrels of four different varietals of Balcones Whiskey & Rumble". The description for the beer is not very clear at times certainly. One of their posts mentions it is a "Single Malt Barleywine Aged in Balcones Whiskey & Rumble Barrels" to seemingly further confuse things.

 

Yes, it does. and that is how I have felt about the description. If I remember correctly the brewery staff said that it was bourbon barrels and not scotch barrels... So take that for what it is...

 

I was the idiot who introduced "Scotch" into this discussion, which I thought came from the description from the cans.

However, the cans just said "Single Malt Whiskey Barrel", not Scotch.

Admittedly, I an wrong. May the beer Lords deny me ANY non-adjuncted Phase Three beers, even though I am a so-called "Ambassador", but instead let them rain sugar water over my head until I drown, a broken man..

 

I think you got the broken man part down fine.

In all fairness, Balcones is like the only distillery that I know of that makes a “single
Malt” whiskey that is bourbon like. If you ever said, “Hey, would you like a single malt…” and didn’t get to finish the question, someone who hates scotch would cut you off right there.

 

So is the beer barrel aged or just the scotch?

 

Maybe off-topic, but it seems like almost all "Scotch BA" beers are aged in peated Scotch barrels. So people associate Scotch BA beers with being smoke bombs. A lot of Scotch (maybe most?) is not peated, and I'd like to see more non-peated Scotch BA beers. I've had a Speyside Scotch BA beer from Cloudwater in the UK before, and it tasted pretty good (although it wasn't aged nearly long enough).

 

Revolution has a Smoked Barleywine on the Taproom draft list! It's listed as an "Innovation Beer" and I plan on getting out this week to try it.

 

Scotch used to be aged a lot in ex-Sherry casks, but that is expensive and hard to come by now, so it’s uncommon across the industry. Instead, most are aged in ex-bourbon barrels. Sherry barrels also get reused over again, and so there is a bit of blending that goes on. (At least this is my take. Admittedly I haven’t “refreshed” my knowledge on this in a bit.)

I don’t know or remember if peated scotch uses new oak, or also ex-bourbon barrels. I don’t think any of them use ex-sherry. I suspect the barrels (with peat) are more common for a variety of reasons, including that I suspect they have more life left in them, and are less expensive than others.