Barrel Week
Last week was an exciting one at Winterlong with lots of barrel work. We had as much fun filling and emptying barrels as we did individually naming each one. This marks the return of some beers we release once a year as well as something completely new and exciting. Here’s a recap of what went down.
Alex's barrel transfer plan.
Erebus and Terror
After four months of conditioning in bourbon-soaked barrels (aka Huey, Dewey, and Louie), TERROR Oak-Aged Russian Imperial Stout was moved to the brite tank for carbonation and packaging last Friday. It’s lusciously smooth with notes of dark chocolate, roast, molasses, toffee, vanilla and toasted oak. It’s now available in bottles at our Tasting Room and should be on Liquor Store shelves in a couple weeks.
TERROR’s un-oaked counterpart, EREBUS, named after the Franklin Expeditions other ill-fated shipwreck, will be joining the bottle line up at the end of the month.
Terror now in bottles.
Divine Intervention
While Terror left its barrel home, another heavy hitter, DIVINE INTERVENTION Belgian Tripel, took residence in freshly emptied Woodford Reserve bourbon barrels (introducing, Alvin, Theodore and Simon). We typically age this beer even longer in barrels, around 8-10 months. We still have a few cases of the 2018 iteration, if you can’t wait to taste this next batch.
If you're interested in seeing what this beer tastes like before it goes into the barrels, we have a couple kegs with just 'simply' DIVINE, on tap while supplies last. At 10.5%, this huge beer boasts classic Belgian-yeast aromas of spice and fruit, with a candy-like sweetness that leads to a dry finish. Sorry no growler fills on this one.
It truly is Divine!
Getting Funky
With our simple company philosophy of 'brewing the beer we want to drink', we’ve finally taken the plunge and are putting some ‘funk’ (aka Brettanomyces or Brett) into two new beers.
Brett let me introduce you to Winterlong!
For our first experimentation with this so called ‘wild’ yeast, we’ve brewed two base beers, a double IPA and a saison. After primary fermentation, both beers were transferred to their own respective red wine barrels (enter T-Boz, Left Eye, Chilli + Mike D, Ad-Rock and MCA). We then pitched the same Brett strain into each beer to see how it manifests in these two styles. We’ll be sampling the barrels every few months until the yeast is done its work and we have the desired flavour profile. Then it’ll be dry hopping time and packaging.
Now we wait!