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Friday, September 27, 2013

Wine (beer) Education: Barrel Aged Beer

Wine Tasting at all FOUR locations

Barrel Aged Beer 
September 28 from 11am-4pm.
Taste Boulevard Bourbon Barrel Quad at each location
(each store will also have other wines out to taste)

A little more education: We are going to try to feature either a grape or a wine region each week at our stores. We will give you some background information on the grape or region and feature a wine that highlights what we are featuring. We will taste that wine on Saturday at all four of our locations. We will post it here in our blog and send it out in our emails - click here to sign up for our emails

On our blog, click on the  label "Education" and you can read all of the education articles (see the right column under the heading "labels".

Barrel Aged Beer 

(from a "wine guy's perspective)

A couple of month’s ago I wrote and education article about my own education, as a wine buyer, of Brettanomyces yeast, it’s role in beer and why I don’t like Brett beer (fyi Brett is a considered a flaw in wine.) With the release of Boulevard’s hugely popular Bourbon Barrel Quad coming this week I got to thinking of another “trend” in beer and how as a “wine guy” I have really been won over by the barrel ageing process. 

Flash back 5 years, I’m sitting at a bar in Los Angeles and have ordered a Stone Arrogant Bastard, a beer expert I know suggested that if I can find Stone Beers, especially the Arrogant Bastard I should order it. The bartender mentioned they also have an oak aged version to which I replied “No thanks, oak ageing is for wine”. Boy was I wrong, oak-ageing, whether it be bourbon barrels, wine barrels, or even new oak the barrel ageing of beer much like wine can serve both to flavor and shape a beer and the results are fantastic. Check out this great story from the LA Times for more info about the barrel ageing process. In fact we have created our own bourbon barrel series of beer here at The Wine and Cheese Place, using barrels from our single barrel bourbon projects. Stop by this weekend to sample some of our favorite barrel aged beers and see what all the hype is about.   We have also barrel aged Maple Syrup called Sweet Sophie.  Come in and ask for a taste of that also.  We have a recipe of the week featuring the Sweet Sophie.

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