With each and every new union of malted barley, hops, water, yeast and oak barrels, we are reminded that this marriage of ingredients is still very much in its infancy. While wine and distilled spirits have a rich documented history of aging in oak barrels to enhance and flavor the liquids, beer does not.
For the past 15 years, the little brewery in Paso Robles, CA, has operated like a Vegas wedding chapel, acting as one of the busiest, most efficient officiants overseeing the marriage of oak and beer. But the employees at Fire-stone Walker are not alone witnessing the nuptials of beer and oak. Brewers worldwide are racing to the altar of barrel aging their beers, hoping to usher in new time-in-a-bottle moments.
As craft brewers practicing this alchemy, we’re doing far less in the way of navigation than one might imagine. A Google search lists more than 75.2 million entries for oak and wine. It lists 12.8 million for oak and spirits, while struggling to find a mere 39,500 entries for oak and beer. How did this disparity come to be?
Much of it has to do with freshness and spoilage. Beer remains the lowest alcohol-by-volume beverage of the three (if we assume the bulk of the beer consumed in the world is close to 5 percent ABV). As such, beer is prone to degradation in ways that distilled spirits and wine are not. Both of these liquids are inherently more suitable for aging than beer, given their potency (assuming most wine is packaged at 14 percent ABV and distilled spirits are bottled at 80 proof, or 40 percent ABV).
While production methods for wine and distilled spirits are largely unchanged, modern brewing methods have evolved considerably since Louis Pasteur published his landmark findings on single-cell pure yeast strain isolation. Certainly his research on fermentation applies across numerous alcoholic beverages, but clearly the production of beer has shifted the most.
Beer remains a beverage that is most often consumed in its relative youth with an accelerated sense of urgency. Historically, time has not been its friend, making it the most perishable of the three alcoholic drinks. The bulk of the beer in the world is consumed before it reaches 6 months of age. Consider that few wines are ever bottled with such youthful enthusiasm.
Where wooden vessels once were common in brewing, breweries today are singularly focused on uniformity and the use of inert materials to deliver the highest level of purity to the consumer. Stainless steel, aluminum and glass have all become common carriers, displacing wooden tanks and casks as the vessel of choice. The remnants of beer production from 200 years ago are barely visible today, with a focus on modernity, efficiency and predictability.
And now that brewers have perfected the science of stable brews, we have set our sights on stretching the limitations of beer production in numerous ways. Front and center in this flavors race is the use of white oak (both American and French varieties). From what I have seen, the use of white oak for aging and flavoring beer is here for good. And like a mother-in-law who comes to visit and never leaves, white oak promises to exert considerable influence.
