Beer for a Derby party

[TinyHands]

Hello everyone-- long time, no brew. It's been since August, and even though BierMuncher's Oktoberfast Ale went really well, I've been out of homebrew for months.

Anyway, I've offered to make a batch for a Kentucky Derby party. I thought I would make a pretty easy-going amber, but they asked if I could work bourbon into the recipe. Being my second-favorite kind of boozahol, I know that bourbon/charred oak is a tricky flavor to balance, and can take over the whole damn bottle if I let it. But I run the risk of no one drinking the beer if I belly up with malt. The favorite beers of the two hosts, if this is an indication of the audience, are Leine's Canoe Paddler and Natural Ice .

My question to you all: what would be an interesting way to get a bourbon flavor into a beer that would be suitable for a Derby party? I mean, there's always the option of ditching the request entirely, but I feel like my excuse for doing that is "that's too hard", which is an excuse I'm not very fond of. Thanks in advance!

 

[bfish]

Take Deception Cream Stout, and secondary over some bourbon soaked oak cubes or spirals and also use mint tea bags for a bourbon mint cream stout.

or

make a Kentucky Common (i.e. mash bill using same ingredients as bourbon mash mill).

 

[bobeer]

Id let the beer ferment out completely then take a quart or 2 of the unconditioned beer and oak it with bourbon soaked cubes for a week or so. Carefully add the oaked beer to the rest of the beer to the taste you think will be acceptable and proceed to package as normal. If you're bottling you may want to add slightly a little more oak flavor to it because I find it fades slightly during the carbonation/conditioning process.
Or you could just split the batch and oak an entire half of it and have 2 beers to serve so people can compare them. Fun!
Good luck!

 

[TinyHands]

huh. Two years in Louisville, and I never heard of the Kentucky Common. Maybe I was hanging out with the wrong hipsters. That's fascinating, I might try it.

 

[ktblunden]

huh. Two years in Louisville, and I never heard of the Kentucky Common. Maybe I was hanging out with the wrong hipsters. That's fascinating, I might try it.

Kentucky Common is a historical pre-Prohibition style that you'd be hard pressed to find a commercial example of today. Revvy has a recipe in the database that's been very well received.

 

[ImNoExpert]

huh. Two years in Louisville, and I never heard of the Kentucky Common. Maybe I was hanging out with the wrong hipsters. That's fascinating, I might try it.

Louisville was THE place for Kentucky Common! It was probably called Louisville common before it was called Kentucky Common.

 

[TinyHands]

Revvy has a recipe in the database that's been very well received.

I was checking that out. The amount of corn freaks me out. But like, in a good way.