2014 Bourbon Barrel Wee Heavy

It's back! We just pulled our first barrel of this year's Bourbon Wee Heavy and it is hands down the best batch yet! It will be debuting at Fall Festivale this weekend and I can't wait to hear what people think about it. I wanted to take some time to tell everyone how it is different this year.

The first year we released the Wee Heavy was in 2012. It was a really good beer with a lot of bourbon flavor, but we didn't know that our yeast supplier had shipped us a contaminated slurry of yeast which lead to over carbonation in bottles that were kept warm.

Last year, we were really excited to brew it again, but we waited a little bit later into the year. The beer was still good, but the bourbon flavor was more subtle due to the colder climate that the barrels were aged in. The beer still got a nice oaky flavor, but I always missed the bourbon flavor from the first year.

So this year we learned our lesson and we brewed the beer during the summer so that the barrels would age in similar conditions to the 2012 batch. We also made sure to get a specific type of Buffalo Trace barrels so that we would get the vanilla bourbon flavor that the first batch had. It was definitely successful as we now have a ton of bourbon flavor.

Both of the previous batches were originally carbonated to a low volume of carbonation. Historically, Wee Heavys were carbonated at 1.2-1.5 volumes of co2. The low carbonation helps to make the beer a little more drinkable since you are less prone to feeling bloated. However, with such a low level of co2 in solution, we have had complaints that customers have thought the beer was flat. This year, we will be carbonating the beer to a higher level, but it will still be relatively low to keep the drinkability. Typically, bottled beers are around 2.4 volumes of co2, so we will be carbonating to 1.9 volumes.

So if you are at Fall Festivale this weekend, post reviews in the comments section. I'm looking forward to getting consumer feedback!

Another Pinstripe Fest in the Books!

And so begins the recovery process of a long day of drinking Pinstripe... Last night, we wrapped up our third annual Pinstripe Fest. It was a blast! I can honestly say that I think it was our best one yet. Here are some things that I think made it great:

1. Oreo Pinstripe... I was shocked at how much this beer actually tasted like Oreos. I think it was Doug's idea to do Oreo this year and I originally cringed at the idea. Originally, we were just going to randle Pinstripe with Oreos, but instead we added cocoa nibs, vanilla, and lactose to a keg and I thought it was great. I would really like to bottle this variation in bombers or in 4-packs... Double Stuffed Stout?

2. A good line up of beers... In addition to the Oreo Pinstripe, I personally felt that this year's beers were the most drinkable variations we have done. Typically, we come up with some pretty crazy ideas for our variations and we go into it knowing that a few of them have potential to be a little too out there and we try to balance those riskier ones with some safer variations that we can count on to be good. In the past, some of our really crazy ideas didn't work out quite as we hoped (Sriracha comes to mind). I really expected the Bloody Mary version to be this year's bust, but I actually had a lot of people come up to me and tell me they loved it. I really liked the salted caramel, dry hopped, bourbon nitro, white chocolate, and hazelnut. 

3. Debut of spirits... I was really anxious to debut our limoncello and our creme liqueur. The feedback we got was all really positive. A few adventurous people wound up making car bombs with their favorite Pinstripe variation and the creme liqueur. I'd be lying if I said I didn't try one with our Chocolate Oatmeal Porter earlier in the night. It was awesome!

4. Great entertainment... Seriously, Solid Blue Bluegrass Band was awesome! Unlike a lot of bands, they came and played at a perfect volume, sounded really well rehearsed, and the played some really great tunes. Also, when we started planning Pinstripe Fest months ago, who would have guessed that Ole Miss vs. Auburn would be such a great game? 

5. The food... Stan and Tina always do a great job with the pizzas, but they really out did themselves last night. Their pasta cup appetizers were really good as well. I can't wait to have their brunch later this morning!

6. Allison kicked ass... This isn't really anything new, she's been kicking ass for a long time now, but she really did a great job with the planning and lay out. Everything ran really smoothly from what I saw last night and Allison deserves the praise for making that happen.

I won't lie and say that I can't wait to start making pinstripe variations again (This event really does take a lot out of us), but last night did get me excited to start coming up with new ideas for next year. It is always a challenge to come up with variations that don't repeat themselves.