Side Project Silent Barrel Program
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Silent Barrel
Selected by and for our members and our friends.
I am here today to announce our Silent Barrel Program. Silent Barrel showcases single barrel picks, picks which we bring others into our barrel room, sample barrels and pick the barrel which we would all like to share with our names on it.
Each barrel, no matter the recipe, the age or the type of spirit it once held, has its own personality. Much like the Bourbon and Whiskey world, bottling them straight from the barrel, unblended and still, can allow us to share with you the closest thing to the barrel-picking experience.
Late last year, we kicked this program off with our friend Paul Hayden from The Wine and Cheese Place. We pulled samples from barrels we felt were ready to see the light of day and he invited his friends to join us for an evening at the brewery tasting and discussing each barrel. I knew that I wanted to release the beer still (no carbonation) to share almost exactly what the beer tastes like straight from the barrel. We chose Barrel #633 - a modified version of the Vibes recipes which aged in a Willett 5 Year Bourbon Barrel for almost 3 years.
We followed that selection with selections from two other friends - Keller Ford from Cask and Chris, Sean and Tim of Clayton Winehouse.
Two weeks ago, Keller received his picks - Barrel #767 - OWK recipe aged in a 5 yr Willett Rye Barrel for 2 years - and Barrel #798 - MJK recipe aged in a Cask store pick Four Roses Barrel for 22 months. Both were bottled "still" and released at his store in Cape Girardeau. We have known Keller for almost 20 years now, and it was an honor to have him and his friends join us at our barrel warehouse to taste through our barrels. We were also thrilled that one of his Cask pick Barrels came full circle when they chose that barrel back from us!
Earlier this year, we were also joined by our buddies from Clayton Winehouse in our barrel room for their selection day. We sampled through several barrels, bouncing between different recipes from different brew dates and barrel types and selected Barrel #568 - a Barrel which included two separate recipes - a stout collaboration with Henry from Monkish and a stout collaboration with Sam from Other Half. Neither of these beers have been released yet, so this will be their first release to the public. When we fill barrels from a tank, we sometimes end up with partial barrels and we hold those barrels at the brewery to be topped off with another brew when it is ready for barrel. Meaning that this Henry/Sam barrel was the only Henry/Sam barrel in our whole warehouse, and it was selected to be shared as is by this wonderful group of people. The release of their Silent Barrel has not happened yet, so jump over and ask them the details for that release if you are interested.
These picks, so far, have been with our friends who own and operate bottle shops, so these bottles have been released exclusively through their shops. We are saving a small amount to pop up for on-site enjoyment at our locations. The Silent Barrel picks are a new venture for us, and we are eager to start sharing the intricacies of our barrel-aging processes and what our warehouse can produce.
I look forward to our next Silent Barrel pick, a selection with our La Coterie members and further exploring how we can best share these barrel picks with more people.
Thank you for reading about what and why we do some of the things we do and how we are continually excited to evolve and explore Barrel-Aged beers.
Cheers,
Cory