We've recently been dissecting the laborious process of making sour barrel aged beers and the process of keeping them happy. Now that we've looked at the
brewing and lab work required for these beers, it's time to address
cellaring and barrel aging.
After these beers are brewed, they are racked into barrels that fall under the scrupulous watch of our wood cellarmen. These barrels are stored mainly in two off-site warehouses and taken back and forth to the brewery building as needed for filling, emptying, and hugging. Our team spends many hours babysitting these barrels to make sure they (and their precious cargo) are content.
When we brew batches of sour beer for aging, we won't see them again for many months, or even years. On top of that, a percentage of beer evaporates from these barrels each year, so we actually end up with less beer than when we started. This means we're making beer that is not being sold immediately, some of which is very moody, expensive and vanishing into the air!
It takes building relationships with
wineries and
coopers to get these barrels, not to mention some funds to afford storage space for them. And since we love to get crazy with ingredients at times, getting large quantities of
fruit (including weird ones) to add to these beers can certainly tally up some costs.
But we believe this is all worth it to make the beer we love. Lots of you had questions about our sour barrel aged beer, so we addressed the cellaring & aging side of things in this post.
