Lone Peak Brewery, Big Sky Montana - Bourbon Barrel Stout

Ok so last winter I went out to Big Sky Montana to go skiing. If anyone is from out there your input would be greatly appreciated. Well in big sky is a craft brewing burger joint I guess you would call it that had this amazing Bourbon Barrel Stout. Below you will find the description for what it is.

Bourbon Barrel Stout- We took 18 year old Elijah Craig Bourbon barrels from Heaven Hills Distillery in Kentucky and aged our Hippy Highway Oatmeal Stout for 3 months. What came out a brew with a lot of Bourbon flavor and aroma...without all the alcohol. Serving in 4 and 8oz samples only. Pricing is different than the other brews.

Just to cover all bases this is what the Hippy Highway Oatmeal Stout is described as

Hippy Highway Oatmeal Stout - Our Oatmeal Stout is...well...black! It's chock full of six different imported English malts and 10% flaked oats that give it a thick, rich mouth feel. The Chinook and Northern Brewer hops definitely take second seat to the roasted and toasty malt profile. This is a stout lovers stout for stout lovers to love...PEACE!

Basically I want to recreate the Bourbon Barrel Stout. Im am shooting for finishing time of Christmas. So... I need a recipe for the Oatmeal Stout. Also a way to impart some bourbon barrel flavor into the stout. I have read about racking into a secondary and putting some bourbon soaked wood chips in there and letting it age. How do you go about soaking the wood chips? Do you use chips or chunks? I know chips will create more surface area. Thanks for all the help!!!!

Also on a different side note, if anyone is from the New Haven, CT area please send me a PM. I want to recreate a beer from there as well.

Hey, I don't have a recipe for this but would love to find it out of someone gives you a good one. I spent a month in Big Sky and drank at that brewery every day. They had the hippy highway on nitro tap near the end, and damn was it good. Have you checked Online for used whiskey barrels? My brother got a small one for $30 and aged a stout in it.

Chips do not need a lot of time. I left them in my secondary for 17 days for my RIS and that was enough, or more than enough, but the flavors are a lot better after a month in bottles. I only used 1oz light toasted oak chips. I would say soak the oak in bourbon. I soaked some vanilla beans and not the oak chips, so I'm not sure if the flavor would be any different. I only used about 6-8 oz. of bourbon, and I don't taste any of that right now. I would say you can double that. If you want to secondary it longer, use cubes and those can soak in the secondary for a few months.

I did a barleywine with Jameson soaked oak chips 1oz of plain oak chips and about 2-3oz o jameson. and the Jameson was dumped off before adding and I got a nice amount of the whiskey and oak flavors after 3 months aging... Good luck!

OK so I understand how to get the bourbon flavor into my stout with wood chips soaked in bourbon. After some research online I have found a few places to buy chunks of whiskey barrels. However, what are suggestions on a recipe for the stout that come close to the description of Highway Hippie?

Alright so went to the LHBS and gave them a description of what I wanted to attempt to recreate using extract. I ended up with this recipe

6.6 LBS dark LME
2LBs Dark DME
8oz Malto-Dextrin

6oz Dark Crystal
4oz Roasted Barley
6 oz Chocolate
8oz Flaked Oats

1oz Chinook(Bittering)
1ox Northern Brewing(Aroma)

And I currently have 7oz of dark roast oak chips soaking in some Makers Mark which I will add to the secondary when I rack it in roughly a month. Brew day was saturday 8/25 and I checked it for fermentation activity when I got home from work on Monday 8/27 to find that I should have invested in a blow off tube. My OG was 1.07 at 73 degrees and while the sheet that came with my hydrometer doesn't give a reading for 73 degrees I have concluded that it is actually alittle over 1.08. If my calculations are alittle off my apologizes. I will follow up in when I rack it to secondary and take my next hydrometer reading in a few weeks