Does the distillery for bourbon barrel-aged beers really matter?

Yes it does. But also what was in the barrel also counts. If you use a shitty barrel that had shitty bourbon in it then it would stand to reason it will make shitty beer? So the opposite is also true.
Do you make Steak and Lobster with ground chuck and talipia? You can but it will probably suck.

 

90% marketing
10% taste

I would guess its more about the name and marketing of the name etc. If you can make a special beer with very special barrels is that not a plus to add $$$. Some folks can probably tell but I am guessing most of us cannot.

Maybe I am dead wrong but I am guessing not.

 

If everything else is consistent, I would say yes. The problem is, things are hardly - if ever - consistent. Different brewers, QC processes, recipe changes, additional flavor additives, time-in-barrel, etc. etc. are going to influence the beer's aroma and taste more than the source of the barrel. For that reason, I really don't may much mind to the source of the barrel.

If a brewer released a 'taster control set' with a base beer plain and then aged in different barrels - I'd be all over that pack. My guess is this pack would both be: expensive to produce, and too indicative that barrel source doesn't have a notable influence on flavor.

 

Totally agree, leaving it in longer is a big player with each batch's flavor etc. I think most of the stuff today is pretty solid so almost any barrel would work from a decent place.

 

Maybe the sales of Lagunitas' High West-ified Stout vs Lagunitas' Willetized Stout would be an indicator that some people definitely pick up on differing flavors even if it is out of brand loyalty. I find that as long as the BBA profile is present it doesn't matter because the first "B" stands for bourbon. I find more contentious flavor profiles come from the other just "BA" variants that can be blended from different barrels or aged in things like used wine or gin barrels.

 

High West is a great example of marketing/hype over substance in beer barrel-aging, as the vast majority of "High West" rye barrels are the standard 2-year rye barrels made by MGP (Midwest Grain Products) of Indiana that go into many rebadged ryes, perhaps most famously Templeton Rye. High West is a good blender, as it does a good job of combining a lot of cheap whiskey and a little bit of expensive whiskey to make a product that tastes more like the expensive stuff than the cheap stuff. It does make a limited amount of its own spirits that occasionally make up a small portion of its blends. Nonetheless, when attached to a barrel, "High West" usually is just a slapped-on brand name to a generic product. For the record, I think MGP does a pretty good job with its 2-year rye for the money, but that's about as generic and cheap-to-produce a whiskey as you're going to get.

 

Yes and no, but mostly yes. I’ve had some barrel aged beers that barrels ruined because they were in young, or poorly made bourbon barrels, but more of the bad barrel aged beers have been because the beer itself was not good. Pumping a poorly made stout into Weller 12 barrels won’t automatically make it better.

 

Are all the barrels used for beer first fill?

 

Not sure. Usually only applies to Scotch.

 

We'd have to try a blind tasting. No idea if brewers aim for consistency

 

Actually, there’s a big difference between a Pappy barrel and Elijah Craig. And generally, the pappy barrel will be my last choice for a barrel to age beer in. It’s already been aged so long that most of the flavor has been extracted from the wood and the whiskey is so valuable that Buffalo Trace gets every last drop of whiskey out so the barrel is dryer than most other barrels.

As far as flavor contribution of the actual whiskey all things else being equal, there is a difference (Woodford Bourbon barrels tend to have a lot of vanilla flavor and Heaven Hill barrels tend to be more woody and boozy), but maybe not in the nuanced way that the bourbon itself is different in bottles.

 

I believe there is a difference in the age of the barrel, not so sure about the source. A few years backThe Bruery imo changed the source of their barrels. The beers released that year (2015 or 16)were far different in taste to other years, across the board in all styles barreled. My guess is they got much younger barrels and as a result the flavor imparted was much harsher.
The other data point I would use is BCBS Rare, definitely was stored in wet barrels and as a result super smooth bourbon flavor. I believe that was Heaven Hills @33 years, plus two years in the barrel for the beer.

 

Question, how big an impact does length of time in the barrel have on the beer? I would imagine it would produce more of a barrel feel or am I wrong? Would you see better results from a wet barrel and shorter time in? Just curious, I never really heard much discussion on this and am curious, if you have time and want to educate some of us on this it would be appreciated. I always was wondering as a consumer what is the best thing to look for when buying these beers, any tips are appreciated.

Thanks Weedy.

 

Below is something I posted in a previous thread:

“I can’t comment as to how every brewery runs their barrel program but I can relate how Goose Island used to (and still does?) run their barrel program.

In a conversation I had with the barrel guy at Goose Island of a few years ago (John Laffler) he mentioned that they would age in 55 gallon barrels for a minimum of two seasons to get the beer to expand into and contract out of the wood to extract the flavors from the wood (and the booze flavors from said wood).”

Cheers!

 

53 gallons

 

There are so many factors that go into a quality barrel (in this case a spent used one) and the ability and skill of the brewmaster that too me it's nearly moot point.

You can have great beer from a common spent whiskey barrel.
you can have poor beer from a high end spent whiskey barrel.

and everything in between. There are just too many factors. There are without great things that can be tapped into from a high end spent barrel, but that doesn't mean you will make/get the best beer from it.

 

What are your thoughts on: “Does the distillery for bourbon barrel-aged beers really matter?”

Cheers!

 

How do you maintain consistency when a critical component like a wet or dry barrel is a huge variable? I’d think the wetter the barrel the more the individual nuances from the distiller come into play, but that’s pretty obvious. The more bourbon the more influence obviously and I’m all for more influence.

 

Find a bb aged beer made with a strong rye bourbon whiskey cask. Its different.

 

what i think? in many ways, yes it matters. especially in the past when we had heated discussions. there were a few of us that warned Goose might be headed for disaster. 1 major part of that prediction was based on evidence Heaven Hill was about to experience a sizeable hiccup. given that was the barrel source coupled with GI opting for major expansion right when their supplier was about to get shaky, i mean anyone with commonsense could see it was an intersection designed for a bad collision.

examine the "Rare" scenario. the PVW 23 barrels for original Rare survived 23 summers &/or winters & bottled a premium bourbon in the end.

(1) if they were not good, solid barrels, they would not have survived that long. they also would've been relegated to a lesser brand name than PVW. my observation is many here will say: "So what". but i bet if you took this example & ran it through a credit rating system, the result would be that the barrel that survives that long & has good results would be rated higher than the barrel that could not survive that long or did survive but had terrible results.
(2) while i don't necessarily disagree with @honkey - stick with the same example, according to Hall's statement, there were 50 PVW23 barrels for the original Rare. 49 of those 50 barrels (98%) were bottled. 1 barrel was tossed. sorry for the rhetorical - but do you think brewers prefer higher or lower rates of successful barrel dumps? in that regard obviously it can matter.
(3) let me put it on extra thick for you. Rare 2.0 was aged in what brand's barrels? NONE. the whiskey never made it to be named a specific brand.

question do you think Heaven Hill had 35 year old barrels because they are terrible book keepers? they liked paying taxes on it all that time, wasting warehouse space? do you think the whiskey & barrels were sensational? best guess is they survived 35 years because they were trash that HH couldn't find use for. that's harsh i'm sure but i'm honest & don't beat around the bush with rosy bullshit. they're either terrible at managing their stock (which is not a good sign) or they got stuck with unusable stock. my money is on the latter.

(4) the PVW (brand) 23 barrels yielded 98% returns. those same barrels went on to age King Henry for a 3rd successful use - right? the 35 year old Heaven Hill (distiller w/ NO brand name associated) barrels - we have no idea what the original yield %s were but we do know that GI tried to 1-2-3 at least some of those & the yield on that project was zero.

that's one long ass example. it does not represent the whole hi/story or an absolute conclusion for the entire subject matter but it's something hopefully you can relate to.