I suppose we can thank Belgium for this one, since the tiny European nation was the only major brewing district where a couple of decades ago there was a significant amount of aging of beer in wooden barrels and tuns. Or we could thank Chicago’s Goose Island Brewing, who made waves some years back when they first put an Imperial stout into some used bourbon barrels and christened it Bourbon County Stout.
But by whatever measure and for whatever reason, wooden barrels are today big in beer, particularly American beer, and chances are they’re only going to get bigger.
Reason number one for this is simple: barrels got buzz! Hardly a week goes by these days that I don’t receive a press release about a new barrel-aged craft brew or hear about a supposedly spectacular ale or lager that has been held for a time in a former wine or brandy or whiskey barrel. And even when new brands aren’t making waves, older barrel-aged and sometimes barrel-blended brews are scoring high marks with tasters and generating big resale profits on eBay. If you’re a brewer looking to garner a little p.r. for your operation, a barrel or three is a good way to go.
Reason two is likewise obvious to me: Anheuser-Busch has already climbed onto this bandwagon with their seasonal Winter’s Bourbon Cask Ale. Sure, the biggest of America’s brewers in terms of market share has been accused, and not without justification, of a scatter-gun approach to their specialty beer program, but this is the third season for this beer, which means that the company must see a future for it. When the heavyweights start indulging in what are basically small brewery trends, you can bet said trend is being seen as something more-or-less pivotal.
Finally, perhaps the most compelling reason to expect an expansion of the barrel-aged category in 2008 is the rising hops shortage, which I expect will lead many brewers to investigate alternative ways in which to infuse brands with attention-getting characters, other than super-hopping their beers. More about that later.
