As the pendulum of taste swings on and radicalism verges on traditionalism, people are now more open to experimentation. There is still a good deal of nonsense and one-upmanship going on in the brewing world, but for the most part, new styles that have merit are becoming refined, maturing and becoming the norm. Take the very notion of a barrel-aged beer: Storing beer in neutral wood was commonplace in preindustrial brewing, became obsolete with modern metals, and now storing craft beers in non-neutral wood is becoming so common that we will be taking the category out of our specialty tastings next year and incorporating those barrel-aged products into their respective barleywine, strong ale, stout or porter tastings.

The top beers from this year’s tasting, despite all of their flavor divergence, had a few things in common. Namely, depth, balance and purity of flavor; things that you would expect to separate the wheat from the chaff in any style of beer. Perhaps the real defining term and lightning rod for specialty beers is creativity. The Mona Lisa was a very creative endeavor, but so was Frankenstein’s monster…

Highlights of this year’s specialty tasting included two from Brouwerij Lindemans of Belgium: the Cuvée René Oude Gueuze Lambic (94 points) and the Pêche Lambic (92 points). Both great examples of their type: The Gueuze is dry, vinous and food affined, while the fruit-flavored Pêche is more easygoing, yet complex and pure. Also showing up on the fruit-flavored frontier isSamuel Smith’s Old Brewery Raspberry Ale (91 points) has instantly appealing sweet berry fruit, but also the complex, woodsy and brambly dimension of fresh raspberries that is very difficult to capture and balance in any beverage. And speaking of wood and ‘steins, it was great to find a galvanization of the two in the Woody Stein (92 points), from the mad brewing scientists at the Grumpy Troll Brewery who successfully aged a Rauchbier in a barrel. They created a dark, smoky, gentle giant of a beer that would be stunning with artisanal sausages, smoked Gouda or Morbier cheese.

For at least a couple of millennia, wooden barrels served to ferment, transport and serve beer, as well as other beverages. One could even argue that without wooden barrels, beer might not be the omnipresent beverage of European history. The barrel’s a clever invention: oak or chestnut logs transformed into complex curved staves, which, when bound by willow or metal hoops, could hold liquid and even a bit of pressure. This must have been a dramatic, even magical breakthrough. No wonder songs were written about it.

The invention of the barrel is variously attributed to Bronze Age Celts, Vikings, or similar hairy-cloaked tribes. By Roman times, barrels were in use across a wide area of northern Europe. Barrels served admirably in a pre-industrial world, but the difficulty of cleaning and maintaining the ornery beasts led to their near-total demise by about 1950. Stainless steel perfectly suits the squeaky-clean nature of international lager, but for those of us who love the funky depths of a truly handmade beer, wood can offer that extra dimension.

Woody Characteristics

There are a number of reasons for this. First, wood is not flavorless. Wood contains chemicals that dissolve in the beer over time, adding woody, oaky or even musty flavors in some cases. Temperature swings cause the liquid to pump in and out of the wood, accelerating the process. Over a period of months or years, one of these substances—lignin—actually transforms chemically into vanillin, which is why vanilla notes are often found in whisky and other barrel-aged spirits.

Barrel wood is porous, which means the contents are exposed to air, creating the potential for oxidized flavors. These are generally regarded as defects in beer, but oxidized compounds give sherry and similar wines their wonderfully distinctive aromas. Porosity also means that there are lots of little nooks and crannies for microorganisms to hide, a fact that may be used to the brewer’s advantage or mitigated if necessary. Lambic and other sour beer brewers have developed a finely tuned method for shepherding the little critters to make beer for them, but there is such inconsistency that blending becomes a major part of the system. These sour beers are a complex subject that deserves a whole book, and, indeed, one is forthcoming from Brewers Publications. For the present, we are simply considering beers finished off in whisky barrels.