Barrel Progress Report

At the monthly meeting of the Heart River Homebrewers last night we collected all the members beer for the next filling of our Cabernet barrel. Although it was slightly after several members left for the evening we did tap into the current offerings to make sure they were worthy. The 60 gallons of imperial stout that has been resting in there since August 26th has blossomed into a very fine beer. The roasted malts have really balanced out nicely. The delicate subtleties of the cabernet and oak have worked their way nicely into the malty base. This was from a room temp barrel and not carbonated.

The successor for the imperial stout in the barrel will be a brown ale that we collaboratively on a recipe and brewed. There will be 10 different batches of brown ale going in from 8 different brewers. We will be dumping and kegging the stout and putting in the brown Thursday evening the 31st. So samples should start becoming available from the contributing members within a few weeks.

For those who missed the tasting last night at the meeting you’ll see that your club president Jerry didn’t let the spilled imperial stout go to waste. Like a true boy scout the improvised straw made from a pen made handy work of slurping up the spilled stout!