This past Sunday we had the pleasure of joining with our good friends from Barley Swine for what was easily the finest meal I’ve eaten in years. And to top that off we had the opportunity to serve 8 of our beers to accompany the 6 course dinner. This was also the first public launch of our Volumes of Oak Series, a line of beers that have been aged exclusively in oak barrels and blended to taste for your imbibing pleasure. We’ve been incredibly pleased with the complexity that extended oak aging has added to our 2 year round offerings, Pale Dog and Alt-eration. We’ve also had quite a bit of fun drinking our 11% ABV Barleywine that we brewed in the Greenhouse and aged in both French Oak Cabernet barrels as well as Makers Mark Bourbon barrels. And all of them were incredibly paired by the wizards that run the kitchen at Barley Swine. Here’s just a few shots of the event, because I’m no tease…
If you weren’t able to make it to Barely Swine for the dinner we’ve got another kick ass event coming up this week on Wendesday and Thursday night at Hopfields! We’ll be joining our good friends there for a Volumes of Oak tap takeover. Wednesday night from 6-8pm we’ll be in house to talk, drink, laugh and possibly cry as we sample all 3 of our recent French Oak Cabernet barrel aged beers- Pale Dog, ALTeration and Barleywine. We’ll also have cans of both the Pale Dog and ALTeration for sampling to truly experience the level of depth that each of these beers picked up while sleeping away in their oak homes. On Thursday we’ll be back, same time, same place to talk, drink, probably cry and definitely laugh while we sample all 3 of the same beers but this time aged in Makers Mark Bourbon barrels. It should prove to be quite a pair of evenings and we are incredibly flattered to a part of it all!
Join us for one, or both nights. Official event page can be accessed HERE!
-And last but certainly not least, a bit of news from our barrel room.
A few weeks ago we brewed a second batch of our most recent Greenhouse release, a really smooth and chewy Baltic Porter. This style of beer is one of our favorites and even when the ol mercury hits triple digits, we still enjoy this incredibly smooth, rich, chewy and refreshing porter. It’s fermented with our house lager yeast strain and given just the right amount of time to age and mature before we send it on its way and the first batch came out great! We’ve been serving it in the tap room for the past few weeks and it’s just starting to make its way around town. We enjoyed it so much, and were so curious how it would hold up to a good dose of barrel aging that we took the second batch and filled 3 different bourbon barrels. The first barrel is holding the Baltic Porter, all by itself. In the second barrel we added 25 pounds of Oregon tart cherries and in the third, 25 pounds of peaches.
We are very excited about what’s to come from these barrels and will keep you all posted as they begin reach fruition.
Oh, and one last tidbit. A few months ago we brewed our 3rd batch of Greenhouse IPA, affectionately known as #3. Out of unadulterated curiosity, we did a bit of a Burton Union experiment. Here’s how it played out. IPA #3 was brewed on a Thursday with an official knock out time of 4pm. On Friday morning at 8am as the reproductive phase of fermentation was in full swing we transferred 5 gallons into a Woodford Reserve oak barrel. The beer continued to ferment in the barrel and with the installation of a nifty blow off tube we conducted our very first Burton Union style fermentation. Once the beer reached terminal gravity it was cooled to near freezing temperatures and racked into a glass carboy. We then proceeded to dry-hop with the equivalent of what would be 4 pounds of hops per barrel using Centennial, Columbus, Cascade, Amarillo, Citra and Ahtanum. We kegged the beer off today and will be serving it this Friday in the tap room. And it is magical! Soon we hope to continue this spirit of Burton Style fermentations on a scale that may allow us to actually distribute it around town. But, until then you’ll have to venture over to the east side for a sample.
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