stories:
Drink
 |
Old Beer Is New AgainAging suds in oak casks comes back in style |
Two years ago, Allagash Brewing Company’s Rob Tod was bottling his Belgian Tripel ale, when he faced a brewer’s darkest nightmare: He was short on bottles, which meant he’d—the horror!—need to dump his beer.
To prevent this catastrophe, the Portland, Maine brewer poured the Tripel, a sweet-tasting, golden-yellow brew, into a couple of empty Jim Beam oak casks hanging around the brewery. When he tasted the Tripel a couple of days later, “it was totally transformed,” Tod says. “We made a new beer.”
The serendipitous brew became Allagash’s bourbon-barrel-aged Curieux, one of the suds spearheading a resurgence of limited-edition, cask-aged beer. From the chardonnay-barreled Temptation blond ale at Santa Rosa, California’s Russian River Brewing Company, which won a gold medal at this year’s World Beer Cup, an international competition for commercial breweries, to the burgundy-barreled La Folie sour ale from Fort Collins, Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing Company, mad-scientist American microbrewers—and even Anheuser-Busch, with its barrel-aged Michelob Celebrate Vanilla Oak reinventing a European tradition.
Barrel aging mellows and transforms beer, providing lush, woodsy notes and the flavor of the cask’s previous contents, which range from red wine to bourbon to port. Until the late 19th century, beers in both America and Europe were seasoned in oak casks. Their earthy flavors leached into the mixture, creating unique concoctions. It was—and remains—a time- and labor-intensive process. When brewers began mass production, using stainless steel vats, it ushered in a dark century of “getting beers cleaned up,” says Greg Hall, head brewer of Chicago’s Goose Island Beer Company, which hosts the annual Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer. “And now we’re seeing the beer world go full circle.”
While the brewing methods of lambics (a pleasingly sour, low-fizz brew aged in barrels) have been unchanged for centuries, “the boundaries of what brewers can create with barrel-aged beers are limitless,” says Ray Daniels, author and director of craft-beer marketing for the Brewers Association. American brewers have used aging as a way to experiment. “It’s pretty easy to throw something in a barrel and see what happens six months later,” says Daniels.
Smuttynose Brewing Company, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, recently released the S’Muttonator Doppelbock lager, which spent two years in Jack Daniels barrels (by law, bourbon and whiskey distillers can use casks only once). The result was a belly-warming potion with whiskey notes, with a smoothness belying its nearly double-digit alcohol content. “I can make an ale in two weeks, but there’s something special about waiting years for the finished product,” says Dave Yarrington, Smuttynose’s head brewer.
Barrel aging often makes potent beers more palatable, though brewers are often more interested in unusual flavors. Barrel seasoning works for lager, pilsners, and stouts alike, though it’s sometimes tricky marrying beer styles to barrels. While thick, dark stout would work with bourbon-infused oak, a thin pilsner would be overpowered, says Jason Alström. He’s cofounder (with brother Todd) of the influential website BeerAdvocate, as well as organizer of the Extreme Beer Fest, which often features barreled brews.
Alström recommends Paso Robles, California’s Firestone Walker 10, a rich blend of ten beers seasoned in oak casks. He also suggests trying Dexter, Michigan’s Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, which exclusively barrel-ages. Standouts include the Oro de Calabaza golden ale (gold-medal winner at 2004’s Great American Beer Festival) and the Perseguidor sour, which is cellared in bottles for six months before it’s sold.
Battles, though, are being waged over Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout, which received a gold medal at 2006’s World Beer Cup. “The demand for our barrel beer is out of control; we’ve got distributors fighting over cases,” Hall says. “I guess we just have to make more next year.”
To buy these beers, visit the brewers’ websites, or BeerGeek.biz and Liquid Solutions. Note: Beers are subject to availability.
Great article!!!
Oak aging is like taking a beer to a different planet. It's not like adding a little more of some malt, or changing the mash temp a bit, it's like reinventing the art.
The micro-organisms that live in the oak have a mind of their own. Nevermind the spirit that last lived in the oak, the yeasts and bacteria that live there are the characters that will really shift things into a new dimension.
Too bad that the oak-aged brews are so limited. I think they are a sensual delight of which we need to see more.
I think oak aging is a misnomer here. I'ts not the oak tannins that contribute to the ale, the barrel is a mere container for secundary fermentation (by bacteria instead of yeasts. You do not need the oak.
Actually barrel aging can result in flavor modification in several ways. 1) simple aging (oxidation) with no flavor pickup from the barrel, its denizens or prior contents 2) leeching of flavors left behind by previous liquids (bourbon, sherry, etc.) 3) fermentation by microflora resident in the nooks and crannies of the barrel and 4) flavor impact from by the wood (or char) itself just as with wines. Often more than one of these effects occurs simultaneously. While wood flavors may be less commonly found in barrel aged beers than the other effects, there are certainly beers out there that display those flavors.
Yes, but except for your last point (your 4/) this will also work with non-barrel containers
That depends. Commercial brewers can't legally add those other liquids to the beer so the barrel acts as a transfer agent. (We'll see how long that loophole continues.) And while you can innoculate beer with other organisms, most brewers use barrel-resident organisms do the job. (New Belgium spent a couple of years getting their wood vessels innoculated with the proper organisms for making their sour beers.) Finally, the micro porosity of wood allows oxidation that wouldn't take place in a stainless steel vessel. Bottom line is that the barrel is essential even if the flavor of the wood itself doesn't come into play.
You americans are too complicated. Why don't you try maturing beers in antique amphorae?
(this is the Belgian speaking, who once worked in a lambiek/geuze brewery)
Excellent idea--I'm sure someone will do it soon. Oh, the head brewer at New Belgium _is_ Belgian. He came from Rodenbach. And the other guys who are leading the charge in barrel-aged beer here in the US have learned a great deal through regular trips to Belgian breweries. They learn how it is done and then innovate from there to create new beers and flavors. Of course every brewer sees his own approach as the one best way to make beer, so praise rarely comes from peers.
even if the beer were to only pick up additional flavor components from the prior denizens (nice wording:), wouldnt that still make it a worthwhile endeavor. i am instantly reminded of OHanley's ruby port etc where there might not be any additional fermentation, etc., but the mere residues of port in a vessel that the beer is placed in go so far in adding depth to the flavor.
Not sure if this is what they're talking about but the cask conditioned real ale at the Tap Room in St. Louis (aka Schlafly's) was really, really good. It's not available year round though I don't believe.
What's old is new...and it's nice to see the current crop of brewers realizing that good things that come from long aging of stronger beers. The Anheuser-Bush efforts are a good reminder that the mega brewers are capable of making truly word class products if they really want to. It reminds one of the old Ballantine brewery in Newark NJ... especially in that a number of their products were long aged in wood, most notably their Brown Stout and India Pale Ale (both aged one year in wood before bottling) and the famous Burton Ale (which spent from 10 to 20 years in wood before bottling). All three were brews of a quality yet to be matched by _any_ micro brewery and more remarkably, properly kept samples of these brews are still vibrant to this day ...even though the brewery closed in the early 1970's. Ironic, that. If they could have "hung in there" for just a few more years, they would have experienced quite the rennaisance for their efforts.
It's nice to see folks these days (like SMUTTYNOSE, and on a larger scale, Sam Adams) trying to actually put craft back into the world of craft brewing. That is something that seems to have been lacking in recent years with small brewers seemingly focusing on "extreme" styles and flavors and forgetting that you can have big flavors and balance at the same time. And much of the time, that comes from letting nature work its mysteries in the aging process. Patience does indeed have its rewards.