Steve Koenemann

Beer & Wood: A Pairing Made in Heaven

Until the advent of the 21^st century, beer brewers went to great lengths to protect their beer from the flavors that storage in wooden vessels might impart. In a definite reversal of these traditions, modern brewers have acknowledged what wine makers and distillers have known for centuries and are embracing the wooden vessel (barrel, cask, etc) as an enticing way to add unique and delicious flavors to their beers.

Prior to the invention of welded metal brewing and storage tanks during the Industrial Revolution, beer was commonly fermented and stored in wooden barrels, vats or casks. Unlike the oak favoring of a chardonnay or the charred woodiness of a bourbon or scotch whiskey, the flavor of wood in beer was considered undesirable by many (most all) until quite recently. Brewers over the years have gone to great lengths to keep the wood of these vessels from changing the flavor of or “contaminating” their beer. The use of “brewers pitch” to line barrels and casks was common as was harsh scrubbing of the vats to keep the flavor of the wood from the beer. The oak used to make these vessels was even imported from Eastern Europe where the oak wood from this region was known to impart little flavor to beer. There are some exceptions to this, of course, as untreated wood vessels are an important part of making some of the “sour” beers, like Flemish sours and Lambics.

It’s hard to determine which brewer might have been the first to recognize that wood flavors and the flavors of other liquids that had previously been stored in these vessels could provide to beer. I did, however, find one interesting story that reinforces the notion that sometimes these things happen quite by accident. As the story goes, Scotch whiskey distiller William Grant wanted a beer to fill casks with to enable them to make an “ale cask reserve” whiskey once the beer had been emptied out. The Caledonian brewery in Edinburgh designed and brewed a malty, estery, sweet, not very hoppy beer to give the casks a good foundation for maturing the whiskey in. Once imparting flavor to the casks, the beer was aways meant to be thrown away so that the whiskey could be added and the beer flavor absorbed by the whiskey. But workers at Grant’s distillery sampled the beer, and liked the oaky, vanilla flavors it had picked up from the new wood; so much so that instead of disposing of it, they began keeping it for their own consumption. The “tweaked” version of this original oak-aged brew was eventually launched as Innis & Gunn Oak-Aged Beer.

Today’s brewers are using wood in the brewing/aging process in several different ways. It is fairly common for beer to be aged in barrels that have previously held another alcoholic beverage. Bourbon seems to make up the lion’s share of this practice and quite a few of the beers on Ratebeer’s “Best Beers of 2010” have “bourbon” in their names or commercial descriptions. As I looked through my own Ratebeer ratings, I was somewhat surprised at the small number of bourbon-aged beers I have actually sampled, given their popularity in the marketplace. Although I have not personally sampled them, highly rated beers of this type would include Three Floyds Oak Aged Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout and Cigar City Bourbon Barrel Aged Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout.

Bourbon barrels are not the only ones being used to flavor beer, of course. Some examples of beer being aged in other types of previously used barrels:

• Left Hand Brewing Oak Aged Imperial Stout is aged in oak barrels that previously held Heaven Hill brandy.
• Harviestoun Ola Dubh (12 Year Old) is aged in Highland Park Scotch malt whiskey casks.
• Nørrebro Little Korkny Ale (Niepoort Barrel) is aged in Spanish Port wine barrels.
• Nørrebro Little Korkny Ale (Cognac Barrel) is aged in Cognac barrels.
• De Dolle Oerbier Special Reserva is aged in Bordeaux wine casks.

In addition to the aging of beer in previously used barrels, some brewers are taking advantage of the actual flavor of the wood itself. While the use of oak barrels, chips and essence in the aging of beer is the most common, there are other brewers that are using other, sometimes unusual, types of wood to produce new and interesting flavor pairings. Examples of these wood-aged beers would include:

• Allagash Odyssey which is aged in lightly toasted American oak casks.
• Dogfish Head Immort Ale which is also aged in oak casks.
• For non-oak aging, look to Cigar City Humidor Series Jai Alai Cedar Aged India Pale Ale which is aged with cedar wood.
• On the unusual side, also from Dogfish Head, is Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron which is aged with wood chucks from the Palo Santo “holy tree” from Paraguay.

You don’t have to look very hard at a well-stocked beer store or a decent tap room to find beers of many types which have had their original flavor altered and enhanced through wood aging. Personally, in most cases, I think that this is a change for the better and, given the popularity and high rating that these beers are receiving, a vast majority of serious craft beer drinkers would agree with me.

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