A barrel-aged beer is a beer that has been aged for a period of time in a wooden barrel. Typically, these barrels once housed bourbon, whisky, wine, or, to a lesser extent, brandy, sherry, or port.Craft Beer and Brewing. Barrel-aging. Retrieved 21 April 2020. There is a particular tradition of barrel ageing beer in Belgium, notably of lambic beers.The High Council for Artisanal Lambic Beers. Lambiek. (in Dutch) Retrieved 21 April 2020. The first bourbon barrel-aged beers were produced in the United States in the early 1990s.
Beers can be aged in barrels to achieve a variety of effects, such as imparting flavours from the wood (from tannins and lactones) or from the previous contents of the barrels, or causing a Brettanomyces fermentation. Oak remains the wood of choice, but other woods are in use as well. Chestnut, ash, poplar, cedar, acacia, cypress, redwood, pine, and even eucalyptus have been used for barrel-ageing with varying success.
The flavours imparted by oak barrels differ widely depending on the oak species, the growing area, and how the wood has been treated. New oak barrels can be used for ageing beer, but they are not common due to high costs. Some flavours that new oak will contribute are wood, vanilla, dill, spice, and toastiness.
History
Lambics have been brewed in Belgium's Zenne Valley and Pajottenland since the 13th century. There were at least 300 lambic makers in the region in 1900, both in Brussels and in the countryside.All About Beer Magazine. IN SEARCH OF LAMBIC. Retrieved 21 April 2020. Timmermans is one of the oldest existing breweries, dating back to 1702, and the production of the blended lambic derivative gueuze is believed to have started in the same year.
Eugene Rodenbach started brewing Flanders red ale in the 19th century, after learning how to "ripen" beer in oak barrels in England.Adrian Tierney-Jones. 1001 Beers: You Must Try Before You Die. Retrieved 21 April 2020. Rodenbach Classic contains a blend of young beer with beer matured on oak for two years, whereas Rodenbach Vintage consists entirely of beer that has matured for two years in one selected foeder.Beertourism.com. Rodenbach goes back to its roots. Retrieved 21 April 2020. Another Belgian sour beer style, Oud bruin is not typically barrel-aged, although there are some examples from both BelgiumPetrusbeer.com. Petrus sour beers. Retrieved 21 April 2020. and North America.Canadian Beer News. Wild Ambition Brewing Releases Cadaver Synod Oud Bruin. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
In the German town of Bamberg, smoked beer or Rauchbier has been tapped directly from oakwood casks at the Schlenkerla tavern since the 15th century.Schlenkerla - the historic smokebeer brewery. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
Greene King's Strong Suffolk Ale is an example of an 18th-century "country beer". It is blended from Old 5X, which is aged for two years in oak tuns.Protz on Beer. Strong Suffolk. Retrieved 21 April 2020. Large oak vats were once the norm for fermentation and storage of beer in England, a fact made notorious when one of these burst in London in 1814, killing eight people.
In the United States, the historic Ballantine Brewery aged their beer in wooden vats for up to a year. They were originally made of oak, and later of cypress wood.Craft Beer and Brewing. Oak. Retrieved 21 April 2020. 20th century beer writer Michael Jackson characterised Ballantine IPA as "wonderfully distinctive, an outstanding American ale unique in its fidelity to the East Coast tradition of Colonial ales."Craft Beer and Brewing. Ballantine IPA. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
In the era of craft beer, some breweries produce exclusively barrel-aged beers, notably Belgian lambic producer Cantillon, and sour beer company The Rare Barrel. Others also specialise in barrel-ageing particular beer styles, such as Põhjala which has a focus on Baltic portersGoodbeerhunting.com. The Baltic Exchange — In Search of Warmth and Porter in Estonia and Denmark. Retrieved 21 April 2020. and Jester King with its Méthode Traditionnelle.The New York Times. American Beers With a Pungent Whiff of Place. Retrieved 21 April 2020. International craft brewer, Mikkeller operates a custom barrel-ageing facility at an old shipyard in Copenhagen, Denmark.Woact.com. Mikkeller Baghaven. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
In 2016, Craft Beer and Brewing wrote that "barrel-aged beers are so trendy that nearly every taphouse and beer store has a section of them.Craft Beer and Brewing. Single Barrel, Double Barrel? No Barrel! Retrieved 21 April 2020. Food and Wine wrote in 2018: "A process that was once niche has become not just mainstream, but ubiquitous."Foodandwine.com. 25 Exceptional Barrel-Aged Craft Beers. Retrieved 21 April 2020. In 2023 the Boston Globe reported that demand for barrel-aged beers had dropped, and they were becoming much harder to come by.Boston Globe. Where have all the barrel-aged beers gone?. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
Lambic beers of Belgium
Lambics are fermented and aged in wooden barrels similar to those used to ferment wine. The microflora from the wood contribute to a spontaneous fermentation and brewing activity was concentrated on the colder months of the year to avoid spoilage. The barrels used by traditional Belgian lambic breweries can be up to 150 years old, and the lambic ageing process typically lasts from one to three years. Willem Van Herreweghen of Timmermans said: "We have oak and chestnut barrels. Chestnut is neutral and imparts no taste to the lambic. Oak gives a vanilla-like flavour usually described as 'oaky' and, of course, this is the most common type of wood used by lambic makers."Celebrator Beer News Magazine. Brouwerij Timmermans — The World's Oldest Lambic Brewery. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
New barrels are rarely used by lambic brewers - instead used barrels are procured from the wine regions of Spain, Portugal, Greece, and especially France. The wooden barrels come in three different sizes: Brussels tuns (approx. 250 litres), pipes (approx. 600 litres) and foeders (foudres in French) with a capacity of up to 10,000 litres and even larger. Most pipes are used port wine barrels that came into wide use in lambic production after World War I when port became a popular drink in Belgium. Every brewery has also bought barrels from colleagues who have stopped production, as evidenced by their markings.
Some American craft breweries have started producing their own versions of the traditional Belgian barrel-aged gueuze. In 2016 Jester King Brewery released a blended, spontaneously fermented beer which it labelled as "Méthode Gueuze." However, the High Council for Artisanal Lambic Beers (HORAL) objected to the name, and the two parties arranged a meeting in Belgium. It was agreed that in future the American brewers would use the designation "Méthode Traditionelle".Food & Wine. Belgian Brewers Object to 'Methode Gueuze' Name on American Beers. Retrieved 21 April 2020.Methodetraditionnelle.org. On Méthode Gueuze, The Disagreement with HORAL, and A New Way Forward. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
Gallery of traditional barrel-aged beer styles
Bourbon barrel ageing
Many beers are aged in barrels which were previously used for maturing spirits. Imperial stouts are often aged in bourbon barrels, which impart flavours of American oak (coconut, dill, sweet spices), accentuated by charring of the barrel interior.The Grainfather. "Barrel Aged Imperial Stout – Part 4: Selecting the right wood." Retrieved 21 April 2020. Bourbon barrels are by far the most common oak barrels used by brewers in the United States. Each distillery uses its own blend of oak and its own level of charring, leading to distinct differences in the sorts of flavours that brewers can derive from the used barrels.
By US law, "straight bourbon" must be aged in new American white oak barrels. This means that a barrel can only be used once to age true bourbon whiskey, a fact that turns a used barrel into a surplus item for a bourbon distillery.
Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout was one of the first bourbon barrel-aged beers. It was first produced by Greg Hall in Chicago in 1992, when Jim Beam gave the brewer a couple of used barrels. Goose Island's Brett Porter said: "We let the warehouse run to Chicago temperatures—cold winters, followed by hot humid summers—that causes the staves in our bourbon barrels to bring in and then force out liquid, and that's where the flavour comes from."Punchdrink.com "The Next Frontier in Barrel-Aged Craft Beer." Retrieved 21 April 2020. Chicago also hosts an annual Festival of Wood- and Barrel-Aged Beer (FoBAB), the world's largest beer festival and competition of its kind.Porchdrinking.com. "2019 Festival of Wood & Barrel-Aged Beer Announces FoBAB Brewery List." Retrieved 21 April 2020.
Other breweries began following Goose Island's lead, typically ageing rich Imperial stouts. Some early successes were Founders KBS (Kentucky Breakfast Stout), The Bruery's Black Tuesday and The Lost Abbey's Angel's Share (barley wine). America's enthusiasm for Bourbon barrel-ageing inspired Harviestoun in Scotland to join forces with the Highland Park Scotch whisky distillery. The result was the Ola Dubh range of barrel-aged black ales, aged in whisky casks of varying ages up to 40 years.Spirited Singapore. "Say I do to Harviestoun's Ola Dubh." Retrieved 21 April 2020. Chris Pilkington of Põhjala said "We've learned the best barrels give noticeably better results."Beer 52. "Meet the brewer: Chris Pilkington, Põhjala." Retrieved 21 April 2020.
Since bourbon barrels are only used once, they are often sold on to producers of other spirits who eventually sell them on again to breweries for barrel-ageing beer.Oct.co. "Tequila Barrel Aging Is the New Bourbon Barrel Aging." Retrieved 21 April 2020. The Bruery, which specializes in experimental barrel-aged and sour beers, has used bourbon, rye, brandy, rum, tequila, Scotch whisky and many other spirit barrels to age beer for anywhere from six to eighteen months.The Bruery. "Barrel-Aged Archives." Retrieved 21 April 2020.
Wine barrel ageing
Unlike bourbon barrels, whose alcohol content kills off bacteria like Lactobacillus and Pediococcus and the wild yeast Brettanomyces, emptied wine barrels are often a breeding ground for them. While these microflora are considered a problem for most brewers and winemakers, they are essential in the creation of the many sour beer styles inspired by Belgium's sour ale tradition. Consequently, most wine barrel-aged beers end up becoming saisons, wild ales and other acidic beer styles.Punchdrink.com. An Intro to Craft Beer's Most Wine-Like Brews. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
The first American breweries to commit to wine barrel-aging were in California, led by Sonoma County's Russian River Brewing Company. In 1997, brewmaster Vinnie Cilurzo began making a series of heavily wine-influenced beers, like Temptation (chardonnay barrels), Supplication (pinot noir) and Consecration (cabernet sauvignon).
In another wine region in Virginia, Brian Nelson, the head brewer at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery said: "Our goal with our wine barrel-aged beer is to promote the actual wine character to add to the already complex flavours and aromas in the beer. We look for fresh wine barrels that complement the style of beer that we want to age."
Allagash's Brewing's Coolship range of beers are spontaneously fermented and aged in French oak wine barrels, for one to three years. "Coolship Cerise" is pale red in colour, after being aged on cherries for six months.Allagash Brewing Company. Brewing with a coolship. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
Wine barrels are usually made from French, American or sometimes Hungarian oak. French oak is denser, more mildly flavoured, and far more expensive than American oak, as its flavour contributions are thought to be more balanced.The Buyer. Caroline Gilby MW on the rise of Hungarian oak barrels. Retrieved 21 April 2020.