Aging beer in a wine barrel

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desertbronze

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A guy in my homebrew club has a source for used oak wine barrels. We discussed doing a group brew and then aging the beer in said barrel. Looking for some input on this from some brewers who have done this.

Looks like we will be brewing an imperial stout. Would you use a barrel that had contained red wine? or white? for that style? Or should we try to get a bourbon/whisky barrel for this style?

Some guys would like to do a sour beer. Seems like that might be a better choice for a wine barrel.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
 
Both of the homebrew clubs I belong to have done barrel projects. They've used red wine and bourbon barrels. A RIS will do very well, as will any of the big Belgians.

Plan on having 10% extra for topping off.

Once a barrel is used for a sour beer, it would be difficult to ever do anything else.
 
Could anyone give an update to this for wine barrels? I am thinking about doing some Belgians aged in wine barrels

We ended up doing a wee heavy and aging it in a Merlot barrel. Brewed the beer in January 2010. Everybody fermented their beer. Beer was racked into the wine barrel in March 2010. Racked the beer out in September 2010. I bottled mine - some guys served it from kegs.

It was a great experiment. The barrel added a lot of complexity to the flavor. A dubbel would go well in that type barrel.

I am enjoying the beer, but it confuses my taste buds. The oak and wine flavors are unexpected but pleasant. I have a couple of bottles stashed away for sampling a year or two after bottling.
 
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