Bourbon Oak Stout

 By Matt..our famous contributing writer/brewer on Brewtoob

            Every now and then my cousin comes to visit. There are two things about my cousin coming to visit that are always true; he never calls and he always brings a gift. I wasn’t surprised when he showed up a few years ago in late fall (unannounced) in his fur hat carrying a jug of what looked like spring water.  [note: make sure you consult the laws of your country before accepting moonshine from your hillbilly cousin]. Anyway, there are places to order charred oak barrels in the internet. Shortly after my cousin’s visit, I sent away for one of these barrels in order to age the gift he’d brought me.

            Of course, to do what I’m suggesting you’ll need a source of unaged liquor. If you don’t have a cousin that lives in a mountain shack, use your imagination – I’ve even heard that some distilleries now sell unaged liquor precisely for this purpose. I confess that I’m ignorant in the ways of aging in oak barrels. For what it’s worth, though, the whiskey turned out pretty good. I bottled the whiskey and left the bung off the barrel so that it could dry a bit.

            But I digress.

           

            As soon as the barrel was empty, I was thinking about what beer I’d put in there to absorb that caramelized, woody, biting goodness. I had decided long before the bourbon was ready, that I would age some beer in the spent barrel.

            I ended up using a breakfast stout that I was brewing later that week. I suppose you could use any beer if you try something like this, but I would recommend something dark and strong; this method does not produce a subtle beer. You’ll want something that has a chance to compete with the woody bourbon taste, and a darker, maltier also beer will also pick up a nice sweetness from residual caramelization in the barrel.

I aged the beer in the barrel after fermentation had finished because I was worried about wild yeast and contamination. I worried for nothing in this case, but this is always a risk. After a couple of weeks I emptied the barrel into a bottling bucket, primed it with a smaller than average amount of sugar and bottled it. I waited a few months before I was bold enough to open one – I’d smelled it in the bottling bucket!

            The flavor of this beer is strong. If you don’t like whiskey, don’t even think about it. If you don’t like oak, don’t even think about it. I like both whiskey and oak, but I must admit that the taste is quite strong.  I like the beer I made, but I expect it would be too much for some people. On that note, I wouldn’t recommend more than two weeks, but my methods are hardly scientific. Furthermore, I suspect that if I used the barrel a second time, that some of the intense flavors might be muted on the second go. I’m not even going to try to guess the alcoholic content of this beer, but it warms with every sip. Give it a try!