Barrel Ageing. There’s a two word conundrum that’s likely to
create any pub chat debate within seconds. What do you think of it? Is there
any point? What are your favourite examples? Are the prices ridiculous?
As a more recent addition to the beer blogging universe I
know that there are some debates that will have become tired and been repeated
long before I ever began. My two cents on such a subject are relatively
worthless now. But, hey, this is my blog and these are my opinions so I’ll
pretty much do as I please.
What brought me to write my judgements on Barrel Ageing was
the increase in effected beers I’ve had over the last month or two. Summer Wine’s
Kopikat Clynelish and Caol Ila proved to be, as I tweeted at the time, the best
examples of Barrel ageing I’ve had to this day. The barrel aged 77 Lager at
BrewDog Manchester left me pondering the sheer novelty side of the process.
Whilst another BrewDog beer, Bitch Please, a collaboration with Three Floyds, showed
how beers released originally as barrel aged can live alone.
So that all seems pretty positive to me. And I happen to
have a few special editions shoved in my stash so it’s time to really decide on
this strange development of beer malarkey. To aid me with my opinions I’ve
brought the most prolific “barrel agers” in the business; Mikkeller. Basically,
the delectable Danish chaps will put any of their beers in an old alcohol
barrel if it goes unattended for long enough. Plus they make some terrific stand-alone
beers that they insist on using as Aged experimentation. Therefore, they seem
the best bet for critical analysis. So I’ve brought From To Via 2011 barrel
conditioned in Bourbon and Big Worse Barley Wine Red Wine Edition.


Maybe these were two of the weaker examples, (or maybe
Mikkeller don’t do it as well as some others.) Either way it proves that,
whilst experimenting is all good fun, if you are going to charge huge amounts
for your “experiments” put some thought into what ‘ager’ you use. Now I’ve
drunk the beers, I’ve decided I don’t actually want to debate the original
points. The whole critical analysis just seems a little pointless. As I said, it’s a discussion that has raged on for some period and will
continue to so. Of course some will work better than others, but that’s the
same for ALL beer. Personally, I find it just as rewarding to experiment with “bottle-aged”
beers. Unfortunately, I may need to stash them somewhere far away from me so
they remain unopened long enough for this to work. Also, I've used "air-quotes" far too much in this post, instantly making all content written void. Cheers!
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