Craft beer is best fresh. If you drink a fresh hop IPA the day it is bottled or canned, it will be at its peak. Never again will it taste so good. Day by day, by degrees, its lushness will fade. Beer, unlike vinegar and Pop Tarts, is not a fixed food product. So why then do brewers barrel-age beer? Because the barrel’s porous, wood allows for very slow oxidation, which can make darker, malty beers more complex. The barrel’s former resident — the wine or bourbon or whatever that first made its home there — is also important. While bourbon is always aged in charred American oak, other whiskeys are aged in different woods. American oak is most common, contributing notes of vanilla, coconut, and leather. Today, Peaks & Pints presents an in-house flight of beer aged in bourbon and whiskey barrels as it’s National Bourbon Day. Stop by our craft beer and cider bar, bottle shop and restaurant and enjoy Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: National Bourbon Day.
Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: National Bourbon Day
Anderson Valley Wild Turkey Bourbon Barrel Stout
6.9% ABV, draft
After primary fermentation, Anderson Valley Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout is aged in Wild Turkey Bourbon barrels for three months. Expect a deep ebony hue with a beautiful mahogany head, an aroma of chocolate, bourbon, roast malt, and coffee mingling with notes of woody vanilla, chocolate, roast malt, coffee, molasses, and the rich roasted flavors wrapped with bourbon.
Firestone Walker Parabolita
9.2% ABV, can
Firestone Walker ages their Parabola barrel-aged imperial stout for one year in premium bourbon barrels, then blends it with a complement of Velvet Merlin milk stout, and finally infuses with whole Madagascar vanilla beans, cocoa nibs, and sea salt to for a salted caramel-style stout for roast, cocoa nibs, vanilla, and caramel notes with a big vanilla bean finish in a 16-ounce can.
Chuckanut Barrel Aged Barleywine
10.8% ABV, draft
After Chuckanut Brewery and Whatcom County’s North Fork Brewery collaborated on a barleywine brewed at Chuckanut’s South Nut location in Burlington, Chuckanut decided to put some of the beer into Westland Distilleries whiskey barrels. In the barrel the barleywine has taken on some of the oak, deepened stone fruit flavors and additional ABV (the Barrel Aged Barleywine is 10.8%ABV as opposed to 10.3% for regular Barleywine). This higher ABV adds more depth and richness to an already rich ale. The hops only help to balance out the caramel and toffee sweetness inherent in the maltiness. Lots of rich wine (portlike) flavors abound.
Urban Family Lighthouse in the Woods
12.1% ABV, can
Urban Family’s Lighthouse in the Woods barrel-aged imperial stout is a blend of 50 percent 2020 and 50 percent 2021 double mash stout, and then aged in Woodinville Whiskey Rye and Bourbon barrels. This year, they’re using their 2-year blend to create three distinct variations using complementary ingredients to this huge stout. Lighthouse in the Woods, their third and final 2022 release, features an addition of Navel orange puree and zest.
Lumberbeard Barrel Fort
15.6% ABV, can
Bret Gordon left the University of Colorado with a degree in Economics and a passion for craft beer. It didn’t take long for him to realize that being at a desk was not for him and he wanted to become a professional brewer. That passion led him and his family to California where he went back to school to earn a Professional Brewing Certificate at the University of San Diego. From there, Gordon worked as a professional brewer for several years at SoCal breweries, including The Bruery. In 2018, Gordon and his family traveled north to Spokane and opened Lumberbeard Brewing, a 20-barrel brewhouse on the east end of downtown. The first release in their Barrel Fort series, this boozy, bourbon barrel aged stout sees a hefty dose of hazelnut for big wood, chocolate, nut, and bourbon flavors in a 16-ounce can.
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