It’s a safe bet that most brewers weren’t there when Miles Davis first took to the stage with Charlie Parker. And given the explosion of craft beer and breweries, it’s safe to assume many of today’s burgeoning craft brewing artists weren’t in Chicago when Greg Hall filled those barrels. But right now, we’re all a band of musicians who have adopted Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout almost as a jazz-like standard, all the while continuing to look, listen and collaborate on new flavors and improvisational opportunities from freshly emptied oak barrels.
Goose Island Bourbon County Stout proved that big beers could marry the huge flavors of American whiskey with skillful beer production. This statement of fact remains front and center today some 20 years later. Bourbon-barrel-aged beers dot the landscape and have become de facto collectibles for beer enthusiasts everywhere. It started in Chicago as a brewer planted an imaginative seed in a garden of fertile artists aching for more depth of expression. In many ways, bourbon-barrel-aged beers have been nearly reduced to jazz-like standards aspiring brewers must master. So many of them are now regularly executing this barrel-aged standard it’s almost become passé.
So what have we learned about this brewing standard in the past 20 years? Above all, we have learned that few, if any, styles of beers easily handle the rich flavors associated with freshly emptied bourbon barrels as does imperial stout.
To understand the success of each barreled version of the standard, it helps to dissect the components. Like a classic jazz trio, we can break the beer down into constituents from barrel aging, treating them like three musicians and their roles.
In order to support the bourbon flavors, there needs to be a rhythm to the alcohols. Sometimes this ethanol-based drumming can be fiery in its youth. As the beer ages, it takes on a more muted quality completely mature enough to sit back and enjoy its supporting role. As the captain of percussion, alcohol should never scream out “look at me, look at me!” Of course, from time to time, the leader will turn the spotlight on him for a solo. But alcohol should always be mindful of this conversation and work like a great drummer between the shadows of consistent plodding and deft touch. Always present and never overreaching is the collective call to action for this member of the trio.
Standing confidently off to the side of the trio is the string player. As the backbone of the group, the malt may be a bit clumsy in its handling. If so the malt may fumble its way up and down the fretless neck while trying to showcase classic flair and New World technique. Of course you’ll recognize the flavors of the malt, but they will be muted. Over time the technician will emerge and the malted sugary notes will be almost seamlessly playful with the leader of the trio.
Daringly risky, gregariously confident or born smooth, every great band or beer is only as good as the front man. And in the case of bourbon-barrel-aged beers, many of these ales will take the stage with a vanilla axe to grind. As such, expect the aromas to be as expressively youthful like a punkish trumpeter hellbent on proving something. Each note will have you syncopating between vanilla and caramels imbued by the barrel. Most likely it will seem contrived. Not yet ready for the big time, this band will sound more than a bit bombastic and lacking the seasoning that only comes from practice sessions making perfect.
Should you find a wiser, more-polished silky saxophonist leading the trio through sultry vanilla, choice caramels and Peruvian cocoa bars, you will have found your jazz. The collective notes will harmonize and at that very moment the crossroads of improvisation and standards will have met in your glass demonstrating one glorious Bitches Brew.
It has been noted that imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery. And for the past 20 years, brewers acting like jazz musicians have been churning out versions of a new bourbon-barrel-aged American standard. And for that, we are thankful that a guy in Chicago had a vision to zig and zag in a way some had never imagined possible.
