Barrel Aging

Denver’s River North is winning international awards and a strong reputation for its deep, dark, malt-forward beers. Here, owner Matt Hess and head brewer Matt Malloy share the thinking and process behind them. As told to Ryan Pachmayer.

Horus Aged Ales founder Kyle Harrop doesn’t drink coffee, but he loves to add it as a flavor component in his big barrel-aged stouts. In this clip from his video course, he explains his “tea bag” method to dial in contact time to get the flavor he wants.

Among brewers who use it, coconut is notorious for soaking up liquid, destroying yield, and leaving behind an oily sheen... but people sure do seem to love the flavor. In this clip from his video course, Horus Aged Ales founder Kyle Harrop describes how he deploys this wonderfully flavorful but expensive and inefficient adjunct.

It takes a lot of house-toasted hazelnuts to get the flavor that Horus Aged Ales founder Kyle Harrop wants in a special subset of his barrel-aged beers. “It gets real expensive, real quick,” he says. In this clip from his video course, he explains the process in detail.

The realm of vanilla and its flavor potential extends far beyond Madagascar and Tahiti. In this clip from his video course, Horus Aged Ales founder Kyle Harrop talks about some of his favorite origin vanillas for barrel-aged beers—and about how the bean can overshadow the barrel.

Kyle Harrop, founder of Horus Aged Ales, shares his approach to brewing, aging, and blending higher-gravity barleywines and stouts—and to selecting and using the flavor components that can take those beers to the next level.

When beer gets high enough in alcohol content, it can pose a threat to can lining and affect how we perceive carbonation. In this clip from their video course, River North founder Matt Hess explains how and why they bottle in glass and adjust for carbonation.

For River North’s coffee-infused beers, it’s whole beans, fresh and medium-roasted. In this clip from their video course, founder Matt Hess explains the method.

Magnanimous Brewing in Tampa has built a strong local following for its big-flavored beers, including its barrel-aged imperial stouts. Here, founder and brewer Mike Lukacina shares some thoughts behind their ever-evolving base stout meant for aging in whiskey casks.

The world’s best oak-aged beers begin with careful hot-side considerations. Here’s how some of today’s leading brewers design stouts and barleywines to maximize success inside the barrel, and beyond.

The old tech of the oak barrel still works beautifully in the brewery—but it does need a nice, solid thwack with the mallet now and then. Brewers are already janitors, plumbers, and microbiologists, among other things. Might as well add coopers to the list.

While different recipes call for different approaches, Third Eye co-owner and head brewer Kelly Montgomery explains why some stouts need more than one bourbon barrel, and why they add certain sugary adjuncts directly to the barrels.

Musing on the “Florida effect” and chocolate-chip cookie-dough as the compass North, the team at Bottle Logic in Anaheim, California, shares the thinking and process behind their coveted barrel-aged stout, Fundamental Observation.

Give those barrels plenty of time before tasting, says New Image founder Brandon Capps, and be open to new possibilities when tasting different components for blending.

When it’s time to pull nails and evaluate components for blending, New Image’s Brandon Capps recommends including tasters who are less familiar with the style, while also ensuring that tasting happens blindly and individually.

From selecting malts with intention to deploying Madeira-inspired macro-oxidation, finishing on different woods, and blending to taste, New Image founder Brandon Capps outlines a technical approach to crafting characterful barrel-aged barleywines.

Brewing up something big and ponderous, and looking for inspiration? The British barleywine tradition offers more quirks than you might think, including more funk, more hops, and more time.

For brewers who read and sponge all the info they can find, it may be hard to believe: The authors of two of the most influential brewing books of the past decade run a brewery together. In suburban Baltimore, Scott Janish and Michael Tonsmeire are experimenting at Sapwood Cellars.

In St. Louis, a city spoiled by acclaimed imperial stouts, Bluewood has raised eyebrows with a few that reach heights up to 22 percent ABV. Brewer and cofounder Cam Lund explains their approach, detailing their chaptalization-like process for kicking up the strength of a few rare beasts.

Helmed by authors Michael Tonsmiere and Scott Janish, Sapwood Cellars’ shared focus on hop-forward beers and oak-aged mixed fermentations was a given. However, over the past four years, they’ve pushed into new territory and found spaces for even more creative exploration.