When the Schlafly Tap Room began the Schlafly Reserve Series back in 2006, they bought a few bourbon barrels to age the Schlafly Reserve Imperial Stout in.  As the beers grew in popularity, so did the number of barrels needing to be purchased.

The problem with using barrels to age beer in is that it’s a one time deal.  When the barrels arrive from the distillery the woods has been exposed to the high-alcohol bourbon so any microorganism, such as wild yeast or bacteria, has pretty much been killed off, leaving the barrel clean and ready to be used.

But once you’ve used the barrel for aging beer, it’s a different story.  The alcohol in the beer isn’t high enough to kill off these micro-pests so they’re forced to buy new barrels.

As you can imagine, being able to use these barrels only a single time is not only wasteful, but expensive.  But what if you could use the wild yeast to your benefit?  I’m proud to announce the debut of the first step in the Schlafly Sour Beer Program.

As part of a half-million dollar upgrade to the Schlafly Tap Room, the very rarely seen boiler room, which is located under the beer garden, will be cleaned up and will be the home of this exciting new program.  New equipment will be purchased, new racks for barrels will be installed, and new draught lines will be put in to accommodate these new beers.

The first step of this new program began back on 03/31/2010 when a special blend of Belgian Single (which had already been fermented out) was added to four different bourbon barrels that underwent a cleaning and a conditioning.  It was at that point that three different strains of Brettanomyces were each added to separate barrels, with one barrel being left alone as a control.

The three different strains of Brett that were added were: Claussenii, Lambicus, and Bruxellensis. It’s important to note that Brettanomyces doesn’t necessarily add sourness to a beer, it usually adds a layer of funk. But, that doesn’t mean that certain lactic acid producing bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Pediococcus couldn’t possibly show up as the beer sits.

As for the release of these beers, that’s going to take some time. “From a brewing standpoint, I really want to give our folks some time to do it right. I want to make sure our guys have the tools to do this the right way,” says Schlafly Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Dan Kopman.

For more information about sour beers in St. Louis, be certain to check out the September issue of Feast Magazine. Feast will be offering up a look at this very interesting beer style along with additional information about Schlafly’s Hop in the City festival beer, the Oud Bruin.

Longest title ever? I actually had to shorten it (twice). Anyway, to celebrate the release of O’Fallon Brewery’s newest (and possibly single edition) beer, the Pappy van Winkle Barrel Aged Smoked Porter, Riddle’s Penultimate will be holding a release party on April 22nd starting at 6PM. If you’re not aware of the PvW Smoked Porter, Andy Ayers of Riddle’s explains it better than I ever could:

The crew at O’Fallon Brewery had been experimenting with aging that award-winning Smoked Porter in used bourbon barrels, and they liked the results real well but the latest batch was something else again. That’s why Tony called me.The O’Fallon team didn’t realize what they had until they ran down the federal I.D. numbers on their most recently acquired whiskey barrels. By sheer good fortune, the O’Fallon Smoked Porter was resting in charred, white oak barrels that had, for the previous one score and three, been home to the only 23-year Kentucky Bourbon sold today, Pappy van Winkle’s Family Reserve, something like the Holy Grail to bourbon connoisseurs which, if you can find one of the 3,000 bottles released last year, can cost almost $400.

Pretty neat stuff, eh? Well it gets even cooler. O’Fallon only received four of these barrels which will yield about 75 cases and one half-barrel. Well Riddle’s purchased that half-barrel and will begin serving it during the release party next weekend. As soon as that barrel is gone, that’s probably the last chance you’ll have to try this very special beer.

Ok, so yesterday’s post was completely terrible. From messing up twice on the type of bourbon barrels to doubting it would see store shelves this week. Sorry about that, should have checked with people in the know before spouting off. Oh well, onward and upward.

According to Derek Bean, the sales manager for O’Fallon, the bulk of the 31 cases should be hitting store shelves today. So I’d contact your local retailer to see if it’s available to pick up today. If the frenzy for Hopslam was any barometer, this one is sure to go fast as well.

Dave Johnson from O’Fallon Brewery posted that they’re going to begin bottling the Whiskey Barrel Smoked Porter. What’s especially exciting about this news is that if you read Sara White’s recent article about aging beer in bourbon barrels in Sauce Magazine you’ll know that this batch was aged in 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve bourbon barrels. Turns out this isn’t the batch that was aged in the 23 year old barrels, this is just the normal Jim Beam Buffalo Trace barrels. Sorry about that, it’s still exciting stuff though.

Dave is hoping that this will start going out to stores by Friday, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. As soon as it’s out I’ll be certain to let everyone know.

_{Thanks to Sam for the tip.}