Brewers go big with bourbon-barrel aging

Call it a St. Louis-style whiskey and water. ’Cause it’s beer. Really, though, your local brewers are doing some cool stuff, whether your drink of choice is beer, a boilermaker or Pappy Van Winkle’s. (For the latter in particular, do read on.) They’re aging beer in bourbon whiskey barrels in hopes that you’ll sip it like wine. “It’s not something that you’re going to drink after cutting the grass,” said Paul Hayden, beer buyer at The Wine & Cheese Place in Clayton. Another reason Hayden’s likely to take his time with these big beers: small production. Sometimes very small production. Take the case of O’Fallon Brewery’s Whiskey Barrel Smoked Porter. And we do mean the case: Hayden received one of only 15 cases made in 2006. A single Jim Beam bourbon barrel was filled with O’Fallon Smoked Porter and aged for one year – New Year’s Day ’06 to ’07, to be exact. Sharp charred-oak and bourbon flavors initially took over, said head brewer Brian Owens, but after about six months, they started to mellow and become more vanilla. Still, as sought-after as the Whiskey Barrel Smoked Porter was, Owens found flaws in his first attempt at bourbon-barrel aging: “The smoke is the first thing to go.” So with his next batch, he blended back in 20 percent regular smoked porter after the barrels were emptied into the finishing tank. And don’t worry, Owens is making a little more this time. He’s got two barrels’ worth (about 40 cases) that he hopes to have bottled by Christmas. For this release, Owens went down to the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Franklin County, Ky., to pick up barrels that previously contained nine- and 11-year-old Ancient Age bourbon. “I think it’s even better than the Jim Beam batch,” Owens said. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but get a load of what else is aging at O’Fallon: smoked porter in four barrels that previously contained famed 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve bourbon. (It’s about $200 a bottle, if you can find it.) At first, Owens didn’t know how good he had it when he brought the barrels back to St. Charles County; they were old and dry with absolutely no bourbon left in them. (Brewers like the barrels to be wet with booze to control bacteria.) When he realized Pappy Van Winkle’s had been in there since 1984, “I see why there wasn’t a drop left in the barrels, then,” Owens said with a laugh. “We’ll never see these barrels again.” He’ll do you the favor of periodically tasting the Pappy’s batch of Whiskey Barrel Smoked Porter to see how it’s coming along, but figured it should be ready to share in a few months. Available now is the second vintage of Schlafly Beer’s Reserve Series duo: An imperial stout that spent the spring in Jim Beam bourbon barrels and a barleywine, which, though not aged in bourbon barrels, was aged on new Missouri and French oak. This year, St. Louis-based Schlafly produced about 700 cases of Imperial stout and 600 cases of barleywine. “Aging does both beer styles nicely,” said chief brewer Stephen Hale. Indeed it does: If you somehow managed to hang on to a couple of bottles of ’06 Schlafly Reserve, they are awesome now. Crack open last year’s barleywine and smell the caramel from across the room. And if you’ve ever described an Imperial stout as chocolaty, wait till you get a whiff of this one. Both beers have taken on rich raisin-currant flavors. There’s no doubt the Schlafly Reserves grew more complex from ’06 to ’07. Hale’s goal, in fact, is to have enough vintages to do a five-year vertical tasting in 2010. “I hope they’re not the same each year,” he joked. That’s the thing: No one’s certain whether the oak-aged beers will continue to improve, though the brewers – generous as they are – are determined to find out. “It’s in the genetic makeup of craft brewers to keep tinkering,” Hale said.