Roger, we're going to need you to write the word Barleywine in your amazing penmanship with the Grease Pen. Okay, no problem. Thanks for the food stuffs. Yeah, of course. Delicious. Barleywine is best enjoyed with accoutrements. Yeah. After dinner splendor, Brophy's favorite, eating after the eating. Yes. I always worry that if I start eating the cheese, I won't have the cheese for the part when I need the cheese. That's why I ordered a little extra cheese in front of me. Yeah, there's a lot of cheese. If you mow through the cheese I gave you and all of that, that might be problematic for your digestive system. Is that what the problem is? Stay away from my cheese. Did you bring anything, by the way? No. What is this? Nothing. Come on. What is this? Number one? All right, kick them out, sub them in, sub someone else in. This is number one? I didn't even bring an ancient wine today or anything. You f**ks. Is this number one? Yes. No, no, no, no. In the glass. This is bonus. Those are all central waters. Then you use that glass for everything else. Roger has some pretty strict guidelines on how we taste. All right. Lots of cheese in the room. We have plates. They have some kind of chocolate covered. I'm going to guess Brazil nut. No. What is it? Some kind of- These are not very common. That's an almond. Okay. Oh, really? Yeah. That's a lot of chocolate or a giant almond. I don't know. Then we have candied pecans. Yeah, candied pecans. Apricots. Apricots. Oh, apricots. Oh, apricots. We have two different kinds of blue cheese, which is really good looking. Then some of those nice little crackers that you put things on. Roger, what the hell? So, barley wine is best enjoyed with accoutrements. So, I went two directions with this. So, I brought food both that I think it pairs well with, which applies to all of this, but especially the cheese. Then the purpose of the other things, the chocolate covered almond, the pralines, and the apricots, is that I feel like you can pick up all those flavors when you drink barley wine. Oh, right. So, it's like a training your palate experience. So, that's right folks. We have a Barleywine episode that we managed to hold out on until sweater weather. So, we're doing much to my sweater weather. I wanted that 100 degree barley wine episode again. Hey, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Jumping up in your feed with something Roger related. I'm Greg. I do communications at Binny's. Hey, I'm Pat. Specialty Spirits stuff at Binny's. Chris, I eat cheese at Binny's. Pat, you're also a noted barley wine barrier, aren't you? Noted barley wine barrier, yes. Yeah. Like a rabid dog. Anyway, Roger? We have at least three devoted fans. I think Greg enjoys a barley wine every once in a while. Absolutely. Unfortunately, barley wine, I feel, is one of those styles that too often gets lumped into the quote unquote old man beer or- Yeah. Part of the impetus of this is that sadly, we're losing barley wines. They are not as popular. I think there's several reasons for that. I think as we discussed in the previous barley wine episode, there's two different paths you can go down with barley wine. You can do the Americanized one, which would be the first would be Anchor Old Foghorn. We're going to actually begin the show by tasting some of that. Rest in peace, King. Yeah. It's no more. Not only did we lose that beer, we lost the entire brewery, which is a major bummer. The English traditional barley wines are pretty hard to come by now as well. It's interesting to see because for a while there, barley wine was all the rage. It was literally one of the most sought after hyped up styles. There's the old saying, barley wine is life. Sadly, it's just fallen by the wayside. I think like the American Sour Movement, which Pat, you were always big on. There were unfortunately some people that didn't do ones that were that great. I think that sullied people for the style. Because this is such a giant beer, you can have some very under attenuated barley wines that are cloyingly sweet, just way too heavy and syrupy and boozy. Well, I blame White Claw and people who like to do sit-ups. Well, that's the other thing too. They're very much a decadent, more of like a dessert beer without being a pastry stout. So the layers of flavor in them though is incredible. They are definitely wine-like. That is where they get their name. They have the alcohol by volume, but also the wine-like complexity of treasured wines, especially kind of the fortified variety. So you're things like Tawny Ports and Madeiras. Let's start off with Old Foghorn. Why is this labeled ale-brewed with natural flavor? So that's the big question. There was always a debate about the secret ingredient in Old Foghorn. From what I've heard, the ingredient that they used was maple sugar. I don't know why they wouldn't want to just divulge that. Part of me is thinking they just didn't want to let people know that was like their secret. There was added sugar to the fermentation? Well, more so I think like that was their secret sauce. It definitely affected how it tasted. They've always been secretive about their process and restrictive of trademarks, that kind of thing. Well, you have to remember too with this beer that this was literally the first American brew of a barley wine since prohibition. So they very much revived this forgotten English style. They weren't very common even in England. Some of the ones that we think of now like JW. Lee's, I mean that in and of itself was a revival after Old Foghorn. That's pretty crazy to think. Beer came out in 86 I think. So I mean they looked to America and saw, oh wow, look at this brewery making this kind of revival of our old style. So it very much, it's hard to under overstate what a influence this beer was for the industry. And like we said in the last podcast that they even followed the old tradition of bottling it in the little teeny like seven ounce bottles at first, which Chris went across the country and smuggled them back. Back in the good old days and you could just carry that in an airplane. That's right. Whole case of Barleywine right in the cabin. And you know, it's in a way unfortunate that a lot of the original American Barleywines are packaged in these little seven ounce bottles, which kind of helps convey to the buyer, purchaser like, oh, this is going to be really intense. This is not the kind of beer that you just guzzle. Yeah. It's a dessert like. Yeah. Barleywines and Coronitos. Yeah. Touche. You don't like put a little old Foghorn. The Saltzinger. You don't put it upside down in your in your Bloody Mary. That sounds awesome. I do think I need to turn the bottle into a salt shaker. When we opened up one of your I still kept. I saved that bottle somewhere. Do you have any idea how many empty bottles are at Roger's house? It's our future projects. And yeah. Right. And actually just homes for like centipedes. I got rid of a lot of them with the newer wake beers are canned. I rip off labels. So then I hoard those. But yeah, I got bad for a while. That's better. Can we talk about this beer? A couple of months ago, Pat made a joke that my ideal beer style is like a session barley wine. And this is a reminder right here that like normal non session barley wines are pretty good too. This is great. If you blind tasted me, I'd be like, why did they put so much malt into this IPA? Yeah. It's great. It's got a real classic resiny hop character. I mean, American style barley wine traditionally is going to be as hoppy and resinous in character as a lot of double IPAs have always been. Yeah, absolutely. And this has the typical anchor hop smell and flavor, that West Coast, resinous, piney. Bracing. Yeah. And it finishes so better. They're not shy at all. Yeah. Roger, is this old? It kind of smells like it's got a couple of years on it. 2021. A couple of years. Okay. And the other thing I would say is, given what's in front of us on the plate is, one of the first things I picked up in the nose was apricot. I also, there's the bitterness of the cheese. It's right in this beer. Yeah. One of the classic, when you read a beer book, and they talk about classic beer and pairings, barley wine with blue cheese is one of the greats. Yo, it's really good with the apricot too. Yeah. Yo, I'm going to blind taste these cheeses and say one's Roquefort and one is probably Cashew Blue. Still. I knew it was one or the other. Dang it. It's not it's not it's not Colson Bassett, though. Sure isn't. So, yeah, just to review, this is old Foghorn. Really sad to see it go. I kind of hope that someone would step in. I was thinking Sam Keljean and Jim Cook over at Sam Adams. I was kind of hoping maybe they would step in and save anchor. But from what I can tell, you know, the real estate there is a nightmare. And it would be too busy saving themselves. Yeah, you're wrong about that. Maybe there has to be a Barleywine flavored seltzer. Zing. But yeah, old foghorn, rest in peace. Our shelves are now picked over. So sadly, there is literally no more. But a close second would be Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. We are sold out of that too. I was thinking about bringing in a recent one of that, but that's pretty much gone from the shelves as well. A little more aromatic hop profile in Bigfoot. At least when it's young, leans more into the Cascade Hop grapefruit resin character. Even more bitter. That's significantly bitter. Massively bitter. Let's move on to some other barley wines here. So, this is the iconic American barley wine from which all the other ones were influenced, and so many brewers took inspiration. One of my all-time favorite barley wines is produced up at Central Waters in Amherst, Wisconsin. Central Water is a very underappreciated brewery. They make some of the best barrel-age beer in the country, if not the world. The first time that they made a Barleywine was in 1999. To commemorate, you guys remember this? Y2K. It was Cosmic Charlie's Y2K Catastrophe Ale. You had to open it before midnight or it really shut down. Original owners, very big deadheads. Their Barleywine was kind of, I like to think of it as a bit of an amalgamation between the American and English styles. Definitely had some English character to it. Their original brew house was actually direct fire as well. Really? So part of the amazing caramel character to the beer came from that. I was actually talking to Enelo, current brewmaster there, and he was saying how when they switched over to their current system, they actually had to make some adjustments to the recipe to capture that caramel profile that they lost. I was going to say, it always reminded me of Stroh's. Fire brewed. First brewed in 1999, then they would release it about once a year for a while. They started getting into barrel age beer around 2001, 2002. When they started putting this beer in bourbon barrels, it really developed a whole different level of complexity. All-time classic. It was a total natural fit for barrel aging because one unique thing about their Barleywine is that they would condition it for a year, just in stainless before they'd even release it. So to your point of how you drink a Bigfoot Fresh and it's like this is a lot. They did the aging for you as they like to say. So with their bourbon barrel age Barleywine, they age it for around a year. But what they started doing recently, and again, this is what's kind of sad, is that as the popularity of Barleywine has waned, especially draft sales, which makes sense. To your point, you don't chug Barleywine, so you're pouring it at a bar. If you're buying a half-barrel of Barleywine, that's a lot of little snifters of Barleywine. They started to think about, okay, well, we know that our beer has big legs in bottle. They always encourage people to drink their beer. It's ready when they bottle it, but everybody inevitably wants to further age their barrel-aged beer. They started to taste some of their, even in the bottle, it's such well-made beer. I actually tried a Cosmic Charlie's, which is not even the barrel-aged one, that was around a decade old. How do you do? It was great. That's a Grateful Dead song. Right, exactly. One of the ones they never play live, for all you, I didn't know this, I looked it up recently. I'm a casual dead fan. Can I have some more crackers? They started aging these Central Waters Barleywines in barrel for multiple years. I heard this and I'm like, this is wild. Who knows what's going to happen? Well, I went up there, they only really do this from the brewery at this point. I'm going to see if we can start getting some of these extended age ones into market. But for now, you have to go to the brewery. But what I want to do here is taste through the traditional barrel-age Barleywine from them that spends a year in a barrel. Then I have a two years in barrel, three years in barrel, and four years in barrel. Whoa. We're currently working on a project with Central Waters that's coming out soon that's an Imperial Stout, that's been aging for three years. You got these three and four-year age ones at the brewery? Yeah. Wow. They will sell no Barleywine before it's time. Roger, is that Imperial Stout aged in a Binny's cask? It sure is. Aged in what kind of Binny's cask? Weller and Buffalo Trace, I think. Yeah. Weller, we're going to split it into two different releases. One is going to be exclusively Weller barrels, and then the other one will be a mixture of Eagle Rare, EH Taylor, and Blanton's. This is going to suck. Okay. Okay. So that's the Imperial style. So we just, beer nerds, we just let slip a sneak peek of something that's coming very soon. Keep an eye out for it. Now, we're doing Central Waters Barleywines, aged one, two, three, and four years in barrel. Correct. So I'm thinking we're probably going to send some barrels up their way and do a barley wine project. So luck for that release in 2027. Let's go. Boy, I really should have brought that Ballantine. That spent like 20 years in barrel. Pat, do we ever get many brandy barrels? I'm thinking the answer is no, but they did a brandy barrel age version of their barley wine. That was pretty incredible as well. I hear there's this guy, Dan Farber, who could hook us up. Or pouring them all? Maybe not. Yeah, no, that's good. Side by side. Side by side. Pass them around. We can just don't finish here. No, no, no. It's not possible. I'll do it this way. Chris is giving them all the Spanish cider pour. That's giving it the shaky hand. When is Friday over pour? The gin alley pour. Right. Listen, I may have gone to Clark Street Ale House and had several Weihendstiffan Fest beers last night. With Dan Farber? With Dan Farber. So we have four. Look at the color difference in these. Yeah, they sure get dark after four years. That is like coffee or cola. Roger, they age in these things in a cooler? How are they keeping beer from spoiling that long? I mean, this beer is strong, but not that strong, right? What's it say the ABV on the four years? They don't have it on here. I think with their Barleywine, it changes a bunch, so year to year. They don't legally have to list it, right? Guys, this is phenomenal. Do you smell across these? The differences are stunning. These beers are stunning. Oh, yeah. I mean, at first, at one year, it smells pretty good, and at two years, you get like the richness. Yeah, there's so much umami developing in the nose. So much. Yeah. And then three, you pick up cocoa, milk chocolate, and four, it smells like coffee grounds a little bit. Holy Toledo. Holy Toledo indeed, and brandy, like it smells like a. Yeah. I mean, in the one year expression, the whiskey is really present. All right. Roger, what's the spiel here? So let's taste through them one by one. Start with one, as you guys pointed out, lighter in color, more of a tawny, but dark for a barley wine, definitely on the darker side. I think some of that comes from the fact that stylistically, when it was direct fire, it always was a darker interpretation of the style. So then they mimic that through a malt bill manipulation. But a lot of toffee and caramel. Yeah. It's got a toasty wood note to it. Not a lot of vanilla is like, a lot of times bourbon barrels give a beer just an overt vanilla character. I don't really pick a lot of that up here. There's some dried cherry, there's some dried red fruit kind of thing going on. Yeah, I agree. It's not overly vanillish, but the whiskey note is quite prominent. Yeah. I mean, for how many people are getting really into bourbon right now? I mean, this I think is a perfect melding as much as stouts are great in bourbon barrels. There's so many synergistic flavor profiles between bourbon and more of an English barley wine like this where it's not as much about the hops. Yeah, they weave together more and it doesn't get trounced by like dark roast. Yes. Right. I mean, the malts are rich and sweet and caramely, and so is the contribution from the barrel, so it really dovetails together. Really, when you think about all the things that people have added to stouts, barrel-aged stouts, maple, vanilla beans, coffee, chocolate, it's all here. Breakfast cereal. It's just subtle. Yeah, there's no chocolate cake, I guess, or cocoa. Yeah. So try this with one of these candied pecans. I just did. It's great. I guess the answer is one year. And it's really great with the blue cheese too. One year, Roger, because it's wonderful. It is wonderful, and it's seamlessly silky on the palate. It's really, really good. Oh my God, it totally slays with that nut. You know, it sounds funny when he says it, but he's right. It does slay with the nut. Yeah. All right. Two years, two years in Barrel. Big color change. A lot darker. Are these all the same kind of barrel? Yeah. Bourbon barrels. Just bourbon. To your point, bro, this is just ambient as far as I know. I'll follow up to make sure, but it gets decently cold up there in the winter. So and it's never like scorching hot in central Wisconsin. So I believe the base beer on this is over 10 percent. So that's part of what helps it have some lasting power. It smells great. It's like there's like a whiff of hickory smoke in here. Somewhat of a spoiler alert. This is my least favorite of them. I think the umami character has gotten a bit distracting and it thins out the body a little bit. I think this one is a little too serious. And it gets a little it's it's showing more bitterness on the finish, which on one hand, I really do like that with a barley wine, but it's not as well-integrated as it was at one year old. I agree with everything you're saying with the addition that this is still excellent. Oh, yeah. I haven't tasted it yet. You're like you're like me describing Star Wars where I'm like, you know, I loved it, but I'm complaining nonstop. I don't know why the lightsaber stops about this far. What's stopping it? A question I often ask myself. So when you tried the one year or this one for that matter, this one's really good with apricot though. You wouldn't really describe it as like hot, right? I mean, like it was a strong beer. It's 14% alcohol. That's fine. I forgot that it was that high. I knew it was high, but that's, I'm sure that's probably the last expression. Come on, it's no higher than one of my all time favorites, Fuggin Awesome. Or what was the one we had on the podcast? Dragon Lady. Dragon Lady. It's not that much stronger than one of my all time favorites. We had both of those on the podcast. Old Foghorn is like I think between eight and ten depending on the badge. Old Foghorn is listed at nine and a half. Yeah. Contrary to what you're saying, I find this very appealing. I like it a lot. Yeah, we'll try three because it opens up again. It's velvety. That's my point. I didn't want to spoil. I don't want to end the conversation on two immediately. But then you go to three and it's clearly like got a second win here and it's richer and fuller and creamier and caramelized. But more alive too. Yeah. That's real good. The umami is toned down and it's allowed more of like a candied orange peel kind of character to come through. And the nuttiness. Yeah. A little bit of butterscotch. Dare I say Madeira-esque. I don't want to get Roger too excited there. Try this one with one of the chocolate covered almonds. That is pretty delicious. That's really good with the chocolate covered almond. When you have that chocolate covered almond, I think it totally brings out this like coffee note. Yeah. It's there and it. Well, it takes away some of the sweetness of the beer and let's bitterness shine, right? It's fantastic. Isn't that crazy? That's a nice chocolate covered almond too. It's a very good chocolate covered almond. Running out of stuff to say here, Roger. I got a blind tasteless chocolate covered almond to say as Trader Joe's. That it is. Really? Dude, where else does Roger shop? That weird place out in Lombard where they have the- No, that one place in Crystal Lake where he had to get that specific butter or something that one time. That specific kind of ham. Ham, yeah. It was a ham, right? Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. It was the- You know that company. What's that company called? The D'Artagnan. Yes, D'Artagnan Meats. That location barely had anything. Plus, I was post-COVID. All the grocery stores like- You got to call ahead to ensure top D'Artagnan inventory. I know. Everybody knows that. Okay, so I hate to be an age guy, but to me, holy cow, when you hit four-year, it's like whole new overdrive, Christmas pudding. It's a different beer. Baking spice comes through, like there's, you can tell it's a stronger, more mature oak character, but it's not dry, and it's not just oak spice. There's inherent spices from fruits and beer and stuff. I did not think I was gonna enjoy it, beer in a barrel that long. This is kind of blowing my mind, because I didn't think that you're taught as a brewer that that doesn't work. Bring me the figgy pudding. This is not right. Yeah, really good. Unbelievable. I mean, that array of figs and plums and raisins is just and spiced and stewed character, like unbelievable. This is a dice roll, though, right? Like, it's got to be right. I mean, how many they have to that has to be a complete. You said they're always checking, you know, they're tasting and checking it, plating it, but now try the fourier with an apricot with Stilton on it. Which one's the Stilton? The darker one. Yeah, the yellow one that looks like butter. Okay, so I'm sorry, apricot and Stilton. Yes, sir. Oh man, I got a moldy chunk of Stilton. Look at that. That's more mold than cheese. That's how I prefer it. That's what you asked for. I aim to please. Wow. That's a Penicillium Rope Fortii. Okay. That's fantastic. You're doing good. It just makes the beer just so smooth and rich. Oh my God. I don't know what. Roger, how am I supposed to just drink beer without all this stuff ever again? Seriously. Seriously. It's like I've been having peanut butter sandwiches this whole time. He's like, do you ever try this with jelly? What? Yeah. Do just wait till you put some potato chips in it. Oh my goodness. Well, how are we supposed to enjoy beer anymore? Roger, that is so good. It's one of the beautiful things about beer. It's been fun that beers are experimenting with adjuncts and stuff, but food and beer pairing is something that I can't encourage people more that this is what you should be doing. Get your friends and family together, try beers and try them with some of these readily obtainable things. It's just so delicious and it's fun to see contrasting flavors, complementing flavors, and it just totally amplifies certain aspects of the beer. It's really one of the greatest joys of beer. So how long are we going to let our batch age? Well, after trying that four, I'm going to probably be dead of some undiagnosed tragic heart issue by the time that beer is released. I'm going to be afraid of that too. But I still got to give you the barrels for it. In five years, I'm going to be like, hey, Roger, whatever happened to that Central Waters Barleywine? He'll be like, we just sold through it. I think the benefit is that with that many barrels, we can do multiple. Yes. Keep them coming, dude. This is great because I expect you to hand them over to whatever nursing home I'm in at the time. All right. Let's stay on the up and up. We bring you a bottle of Barleywine and then I'm like, get out, stop bringing that in here. You know he has a problem. He's combative. You know how it gets after a meaty Barleywine. You stole my watch. All right. So I'm just going to make a coupé. The grand coupé. Do I need these cups, Roger? It's up to you. I got a couple more to try. You can use your Glencairn or use one of these. Man, that's a good coupé. OK. Now do it with a coupé of the cheeses. Both cheeses? Both cheeses. Central Water is just killing this. Holy. You know, if they would just get their marketing down. I know. I blame the state of Wisconsin, not them. Wisconsin beer packaging is lame and it's just not exciting. And Central Water is not unlike Wisconsin residents, unless, of course, you listener live in Wisconsin. We love you. I'm sure you're exciting and progressive and really into wild hobbies. No, go have a Wisconsin old fashion. Leave us alone. I mean, I like Central Water's labels, but they're I totally get why they get lost on the shelf. Yeah, I like prescription medicine labels. They're so descriptive. Yeah, the Art Deco font's cool. Yeah, it's cool. But all their barrel-age beer is labeled exactly the same. Sorry, bud. Yeah, you never heard one of those cans. Well, old Platte River Valley, Greg here is used to the Sandhill Crane migration. You like that? Yes. I'm born in Fremont. I had to drive to Lincoln to visit my grandma, Platte River. Yes. I'm sure Sandhill Cranes are around my house all the time on their route. Oh, really? Yeah. They walk around the farm fields. Oh, that's awesome. I see them all the time. That's beautiful. Yeah. Now I'm passing around another one of the, one of my favorite barley wines. This one is locally made over at Revolution. You know, they're so well known for their stouts, but two of their absolute, just masterpiece beers are barley wines. Is this in their Deep Woods Off series? Deep Woods Off. This beer is 15% alcohol? Yeah. That's stronger than Aperol. It's funny, yeah, I was like, wow, that Central Waters is really strong, and then I'm like, whoa, this is even higher. You can make a Revolution Spreets. Yeah, exactly. Spreets Jacket? Spreets Jacket. So, DeSpritz. This was the last I was digging through my disgustingly out of control beer cellar, and this was the only can, so that should tell you something like I drank all my Rev Barleywine. It tells me you didn't know where the full was. Holy cow, this is drinking like silk. This is crazy. How old is this? To 2021. Eyes closed, I would have guessed it's a stout. I need some blue cheese on the apricot immediately. It's like they made Caramel Caramel. It's definitely sweeter than the Central Otters ones. It's very much more English influenced. They always slightly tweak their recipes over the year, and then obviously depending on what the barrels were and they like to blend. It's always a little bit different, but the layers of flavor are incredible. I would argue it's more of a dessert, Barleywine. It's a little more decadent, but just Caramel Toffee. Wow, is it good with this crunchy nut? Wow, is it good with this cheese? Roger, is this rare enough that you have to throw hands to get it? No, not at all. That's amazing. Also, their most affordable barrel aged beer. What? $24.99. A four pack? $25.99. Wow. Totally worth it because you're not taking one of those cans to the dome in one sitting. No. Not more than one anyway. Not only for that price. An hour's pleasure. Are you getting the equivalent size of two bottles of liquor? It is also 4% stronger by volume per bottle than a bottle of Aperol. What an apt comparison. We need to do a Barleywine spritz now. Do a side by side with this and Aperol. Dessert wine-wise, Chris, this is just like P. Not the level of PX Sherry, but flavor-wise, sweetness level, but it has those dark fruit notes. It's figs all over the place. Raisinated figs. Absolutely. Yeah. This is delicious. Like molasses or some other kind of deep. Holy cow, dude. Turbinado sugar, yeah. Turbinado? Yeah. I mean, come on. Get your sugar straight. I'll take my lumps. Molasses is more bitter, but the spiciness from the alcohol is reminiscent of the spice in molasses. I'm not sure when the last time I had this beer was. This is really an incredible beer. Woefully underappreciated. Really incredible beer. As is Rye Way to Heaven, which is their rye, essentially like a rye wine. We have an amazing release coming out very soon. It is our version of the very special old rye way. V-S-O-R. Aged in our Sazerac handpicked barrels. Seriously? Yes. Wait, we have that? Is that going to be in the beer buzzer? Are you going to tell me about it? Say this again. So V-S-O-R. Yes, very special old rye way. They've been aging a batch of rye way for us for two years now, and it is coming out in early 2024. Wow. The label art just got approved. It's badass. Really fun riff on the Pegasus newer label. And I cannot wait. I mean, very special old rye way takes rye way, which is already one of literally my favorite beers of all time to a whole different level. So very rare, very time consuming, but wow, what a beer. So make sure that you keep an eye out on the beer buzz for that one. We should have a tasting party. You want to put it on the podcast? Good as a sample. Yeah. Well, let's just pull a four pack when it comes in. I just text Josie Rev about this beer. This is blowing my mind. It is killer. And all of that sweet brown sugar and toffee and everything up front, what we haven't mentioned is there is actually respectable bitter hop cut on the finish. Yeah, it's not flabby at all. No. I'm excited to try this. I only tried it from some short-fill cans that I got when the day they canned it here, Roger. This is a Barrel Age collab Roger did with our excellent barrels that was only sold at the downstate Binny's locations. All right. So the next beer that we're tasting here is from White Oak. Unfortunately, this is not available in our Chicagoland stores, but if you are making a trip down to Bloomington, we still have a good amount there. White Oak, excellent brewery in Bloomington. Super nice guys. Old Souls with the beers they brew. They come from an home brewing background, and I think home brewers always have high regard for the old English styles. They make an English mild in a college town, and people love it. So get the kids to drink all the bad beers. Right. Hey, Roger, what the hell is this? This is wheat wine. Yeah. So we gave them some Weller barrels, and they very astutely went, I said, what else you got in your repertoire? And they said, we made this wheat wine once that was awesome. It was a sleeper hit, and we think it would be cool to put those in wheat. In a wheated bourbon casket. Yeah. And they said it's sheepishly because of your reaction like a wheat wine, really? You know, it's- Wheat wine. Not necessarily something you see all that often. Our friends over at Goose Island made some pretty killer wheat wines, again, not necessarily as appreciated as they should have been. And I feel that's the same story with this to some degree, but if you are into barrel-aged beer and you are into the kind of flavors we've been describing, dried fruits, caramel, toffee, chocolate, the complexity of this beer is off the charts. And this is the artist's edition. It took until the last beer for me to relinquish the plate of cheese. The artist's signature kind of looks like a wing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Their label artist is awesome. He does all kinds of concert posters for Jeff-like jam bands. We posted the video of the label being created. Yeah, this is one of my favorite labels of all time. So I don't know if I would have picked it up if I didn't know it was made with wheat, but there is a distinct Wheaties cereal grain note in the nose that is amazing that that still comes through with all those other rich flavors and aromas. Totally. And Brophy's about to make a joke about who the hell eats Wheaties. I love Wheaties. I had some this morning. I love them as well. Well, you're spot on, man. I guess the only thing that would be more old timey is to say it cream of wheat. Yes, cream of wheat. Yeah. Yeah, kids don't get that anymore. It's more mellow and underlining. I can't believe I'm the only one here who's fed my kids cream of wheat. Oh, I guess I haven't fed my kids cream of wheat. And there's only two of us who have kids, Jim. No, I feed my kids gruel. He's like, where did I get these kids? Well, that's why I only give them gruel. So there's a cherry note to this. I feel like maybe it's the yeast strain they use or something because I get it in their stouts as well. Scott describes it as kind of like a cherry twizzler kind of thing, which I get where he's going with that. Reminds me of like chocolate covered cherry cordial kind of thing. Love this beer. I really like the beer these guys make, man. Yeah. Also, wisely, not shy on the hops to make this a balanced beer. Yeah. None of these have been cloying at all. They all get cleaned out. You iron that rind, bro? Oh, man. He's going for it. You've eaten gnarlier rinds on this podcast. That'll probably be the problem is how salty it is. I'm down with the rind. That wasn't that funny. Our last beer here is part Barleywine, part something else. It's a Frankenstein Cuvée. Is it a Roger? You're 50% Barleywine, 50% Madeira, 100% Sassy. No one has synthesized it so perfectly. This is the Goose Island 35th Anniversary Cuvée, which is one of my favorite beers of 2023 thus far. Ooh, do we have a potential preview for Barrel to Bottle picks of the year? Save it for the picks show. This beer was unbelievable. Sadly, I hate recommending things that you can't get, and this sold out. Look at that beer. You coward. Just recommend it anyway. Black as night. I am very excited for you guys to try this. If you remember the beer buzz right up on this, you could tell how much I loved it. Jim, I know that you struggle to remember things, so why don't you refresh me on what that beer buzz said? Some people have mentioned that they could tell when I really like something and I got that email about this. They're like, wow, it seems like you really like this. I'm like, yeah. Like when Joe calls a bourbon dangerously drinkable? He sure does. So this is a cuvee which we did earlier and you will do that sometimes at bottle shares. 14.7% alcohol. People should do this more often. If you're in an opportunity where you're with friends and you've opened a couple of different beers, try mixing a little bit of a bucket and grab a few straws. I remember enjoying a cuvee at your house, bro, with all the brewery days of the week. That's a bucket cuvee. Yeah, that's true. Also, that's what I was drinking while watching Ken Burns American Buffalo was a bottle of single malt that Joe Maloney had filled up with all scrap bottles of little bits and bobs of signatory and Gordon McPhail picks from the last 20 years. And I drank half the bottle while watching Buffalo. I bet it was delicious, wasn't it? It was unbelievable. All right. Did you finish the evening wearing only buffalo hide? All right. So anyway, this cuvee here is 48% English style barley wine, 28% oatmeal stout, 13% rye stout, 8% American imperial stout, and 3% quadruple ale. Oh, this beer is outrageous. Why did you not tell me this beer existed before, Roger? I never heard of this. Somebody doesn't read the beer buzz. I read, I try to read most beer buzzes. I read the beer buzz religiously. It's like, man, I tried to blame Jim, and you weren't going along with it. Spicy little chocolate covered cherries. I was going to say the first thing that popped out was a rye-like wintergreen note. I'm like, why am I smelling minty things in this? You explained it. Yeah. This beer, what a great exercise in mixing component parts. I talked to Mike over at Goose Island, and he had a whole table worth of barrel samples when they put this together. Boy, did they nail it. What a delight this is. Oh my God. I don't even know what to do with this. It's so complicated. I love the mixture of Barleywine mixed with stout. I think that was brilliant. I think they need to keep doing it. Doesn't Firestone Walker do this kind of thing pretty frequently, like their anniversary bottles too? Yeah. Yeah. Very good call out there, yeah, for sure. You have to drink all those sometimes. A lot of those are often though like different stout blends, but yeah, they'll mix some other stuff in. They're stouts and barley wines. Yeah, that's true, almost always. Sometimes, it's double DBA. They have the whole recipe sheet every time. Yeah, every year. Not a single way from this beer. I would like to point out, I've had plenty of Imperial Barrel-aged Stouts, Bourbon Barrel-aged Stouts, if you will, and that this is more refreshing and drinkable with more cut in life than many of those. Yeah, there's a vivacity to it. I don't want to say acidity, but there's a lift to it. A lift to it. Yeah, but it still has the richer note to it. Do you think that's the quad? I think the quad brings the spice. Brings the dark fruit and the spice. Yeah, because it's a very small percentage, but I think the Barleywine, again, is a really, I mean Goose Island Barleywine is one of the best Barleywines that exist. They just won't make it, which is crazy, but I still think it's sadly because of some mishaps with barrels or whatever. Then they're like, let's make a wheat wine and flavor it with apples. Yeah, I know. Dude, that beer was great. So please start making your Barleywine again. And secondly, or if you want to just put your Barleywine in four packs instead of Bourbon County Package. Yo, this is pretty badass with the Stilton. Oh, for sure. Stout, Imperial Stout and Blue Cheese, also a very classic pairing. You should try this with the chocolate covered almond as well. My Lord, Roger, this line up has been pretty fantastic. I haven't disliked a single thing. Chris, are you wrapping it up right now? No, I'm just like kind of freaking out at how good this crazy coupé is. Thank you. Well, I'm not being hyperbolic when I say these are literally some of the bus producers that exist. Roger looked me in the eye earlier this year and told me to buy this beer. And you didn't do it and now you regret it. You told me to. I mean, he didn't tell me **** and that's why I'm angry. I'll dare to say that this outshines some plenty of Bourbon counties. I think that's okay. I think Goose needs to do more projects like this. I think they're a little afraid of doing Barrel-aged beers that they might detract from Bourbon County, but this is a whole different experience. I think it gives them the freedom to show how talented they are, especially with styles that might not be as revered. Obviously, everybody knows and loves Imperial Stouts. This is a whole different thing altogether. When you were saying, when you go to a tasting and try a bunch of Barrel-aged Stouts, it can get so weighty, so thick, so sweet. I mean, this is absolutely the kind of beer that will allow a company like Goose Island that is truly incredible, has deep roots in Chicago, but has been bought by a larger company to keep its credibility. I mean, this is blowing my mind. This is so good. Anyone who's pushing them to the side because they're corporate or whatever now, it's bull. Because this rocks. It is. Yeah, well put. It's world class beer. Roger, do you remember that time that they had to close out all of that Isla Cask finished stout? That was probably where they were like, maybe less risky moves and more pudding. Dude, that stuff was great. I know. I didn't mind it. I thought it was pretty cool. It was so good. That's a bold move though, Isla Cask. Yeah. Bold move. Oh my God. I just had that with a chocolate covered almond that I almost died of bliss. Pretty great, right? All right, so when Brophy demands something, I often do my best to try to make it happen. Uh-oh, big time Brophy after all. No, I really wanted to try this as well. And a big thank you to our friends at Sierra Nevada for making it happen. A while back on the internet in a very interesting display of if you can't have something, you all of a sudden want it. Bigfoot, not necessarily the most popular beer. In fact, the whole reason this project came about was that about seven years prior, they had so much Bigfoot leftover that they were wondering what they should do with it. So they filled a whole bunch of bourbon barrels. And then they were actually approached by Buffalo Trace. Imagine that. You got to have some major cred. If the people that everybody wants to do stuff with, they come to you and say, hey, would you want to partner up and do a beer with our barrels? Sierra Nevada. And they mentioned that they had this Barleywine that had been aging in barrels for six years at that point. Wow. What? What is going to happen here? Where is this going? You'll see. That's why I had to go in the store and buy some liquor earlier. Sierra Nevada doesn't barrel age a lot of beer. And when they do, it's in a climate controlled setting. Yeah. So that's part of why it could be this long in barrel. Big state of the art brewery with arguably a more robust quality control and quality analysis program than any other brewery. And they are hyper, hyper sensitive to anything at all going wrong with their brand identity and their core beers. So even barrel age in a stout, it's like there's a one in a thousand chance one barrel gets infected and if one bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale doesn't taste right, then no, we could never do anything with that. So they are super cautious about this kind of stuff. The impetus between the Buffalo Trace Project was that one of their brands is EH. Taylor Bourbon, which celebrates the man who was responsible for getting the bottled in bond legislation passed. Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor Jr. I will just note that when EH. Taylor was mentioned, both Greg and I slowly drifted our eyes to the bottle of EH. Is that why that bottle was right there? I noticed this conspicuous bottle of Taylor on the shelf in the room. Taylor, right? It's open. I had to wet my whistle during our last recording, so go ahead and pour some. You wet your whistle even before the wheat wine? Sierra Nevada partners with EH. Taylor, and they finish this beer that's already been in Barrel for six years. They finish it for an additional year. Buffalo Trace approached them, said they wanted to do this project. Sierra Nevada says, we happen to have this stuff sitting around in the refrigerator that's still in barrels, I assume, or ready to go, so let's put it in more barrels because six years in barrels just wasn't enough. We got to get that logo. I just want to make sure I got this straight. Yeah. I think if I had to guess, the cold slows down the extraction too. Are they doing this as a finishing barrel? Yes. Yeah. So I'm sure they tasted what was coming out of the cask and went, oh man, this is incredible. If we really want to make a statement, let's partner with these people who have this amazing packaging, the EH Taylor packaging harkens back to old school bottles. Are you about to pour us a beer in an EH Taylor bonded whiskey type package? Is that what this is? It is. How adorable is this going to be? What is that happening right now? Oh man, they need to do one with Plattons. So I don't have the tube. I took it off because I fit it in my cooler. But... What? It came in a tube like EH Taylor? Came in a tube just like EH Taylor. Oh my God, look at that. That's beautiful. Also, it's a Cork and Cage, what? Not 750. 750. Cork and Cage 750. Bottle Conditioned. What are we going to do with all this beer? Wait, this is Bottle Conditioned? Yeah. Oh, Jim, get the horn ready. I think so. I mean, why would you put it under Cork and Cage if it's not? Well, Sierra Nevada famously bottle conditions their Cork and Cage beers as well. We can only hope that it is. So this was released last year in 2022. It's 15% ABV. Now, this was released, like, what? Just at the brewery? Yes. And that's why you had to call them up and be like, hey, my man Brophy demanded this? Yes. All right, cool. Good. I'm glad that worked. Yeah. There was much, you know, guffawing of, well, you know. They're like, who? Only 1,500 bottles of this were produced. Wait a minute. Are we starting and stopping this episode with You Can't Have This? Yep. Wait, we're real jerks today, but we're feeling pretty good about it. So this is a lesson of why you should get out there and buy more barley wine. So it's a perfect way to end it because the only reason this project even happened was because Sierra Nevada had this overflow of- Glut of barley wine. Wait, so don't do? I don't understand. So go out and drink barley wine, especially, you know, whatever's left, you got to support it. Otherwise, it will go the way the Dodo like old Foghorn. Or the Buffalo. Yeah. So thriving in America's West. Yeah. So let's take a minute to appreciate the- Also in a preserve. Spoiler alert. Near DeKalb, Illinois. All right. So let's take a moment to appreciate the increase in alcohol here. So Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barley wine is 9.6% alcohol. That's shockingly low. So this picked up over 5% ABV. Holy shit. Just from the barrel age. Yeah. Yeah, they'll do that. I mean, okay. So think about this. It's in a temperature-controlled warehouse, right? And it's still picked up that much. But is it humidity-controlled? So refrigeration tends to make things drier, right? So maybe there's more evaporation going on. Yeah, possibly. Water evaporation. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Brophy was kind enough to bring a bottle of EH Taylor to the podcast so that we can try this alongside some EH Taylor and perhaps suss out some of the barrel. They did such a good job with this label on the beer. So it's in the shape of the EH Taylor label, the same colorway. In partnership with Colonel EH Taylor, bourbon barrel-aged Bigfoot Barleywine style ale aged up to seven years, limited release, blah, blah, blah. And it still has the Prospector with his donkey being afraid. The Prospector is looking at the Bigfoot tracks and you see the Bigfoot in the woods. You ever see it? You know, the classic Bigfoot label, of course. Horrified Donkey. Wait, so does the Taylor have a Prospector? What are you talking about? The Sierra Nevada Bigfoot label is this scene of Bigfoot in the woods and the donkey sees it, but the Prospector doesn't, so the donkey is terrified. So, they did a total melding of the EH. Taylor label with the Bigfoot label. As you'll see when they both go around. Point of order. Bigfoot was first brewed in 1983, the year I was born, so this seems just appropriate. I put my Barleywine in my whiskey glass. Yo, this is the oakiest smelling beer I think I've ever smelled. Well, like the Central Waters, there's definitely some umami on the nose, but. But there's oak. It's just like pure oak. Oak character on the nose. But it's so butterscotch and carmely on the palate, though. Wow. I was going to say, if it's the oakiest beer you've ever smelled, it's one of the most round, unctuous, viscous beers on the palate. It's a very, very caressing and silky and oily. Man, Rodge, this is awesome. It's crazy how the hops change. So if you want. It's a good thing one of us is so demanding of things like this. Listen to our other Barleywine Podcast, where we taste through a bunch of vintage Bigfoot, and you'll see our thoughts on how it develops with time. But as a fresh beer, it is incredibly piney and intense, but here the bitterness is just totally melted away. It's the citrus character is there, but it's different. It's a little sweeter. It's more lemony. The apricot notes, I think, are coming out to stone fruit character. I would argue this EH. Taylor, this bottle of EH. Taylor we're drinking at least, they brought back the EH. Taylor label purely as just a way for out-of-spec whiskeys to have a home. They're only making two different mashbills of bourbon, and if one of them is just like, that's good, but it's not what we intended, throw it in the EH. Taylor label. Why not? That doesn't taste like weller. Yeah, exactly. It's a different thing. Except, so far, EH. Taylor really hasn't been weeded. But I think this particular EH. Taylor tastes like the classic Buffalo Trace Number 1 mash bourbon, with that cherry and dark brown spice character, like cherry and anise character, and I dare I say, I think there's a dried, there is that specific cherry character coming through in I would also say an anise-y licorice note. This is a pretty incredible beer. Yeah. Shame we can't get it. Yeah. Again, this is one of those things where like every beer on this podcast, if you enjoy this, please go support Barleywine, pick it up, let the breweries know how much you love it. Breweries listen to people when you reach out to them. It helps to know that there's somebody that cares about this. If you are passionate about this and it's something you like, share it with people, share it with your friends, share it with somebody that's never tasted anything like this before. Because it can be really surprising, people make these stereotypes again like, this is like an older style and it's not something that's on people's radar anymore. Well, that can make it all the more exciting when you show somebody how amazing it is. Yeah. Lord have mercy. If you sat down at a winter fire with a glass of this. Okay. You're not doing anything to refresh its image as not an old guy. I'm just saying like. If you're ever eating a piece of mutton. Everybody's got solo stoves now. If you're on the solo stove. I'm sick of this bloody mutton. Yeah, right. Well, so if you're back from the EDM concert. Right. Your Molly is still working. Yeah. It was really good with the moldy cheese. Rolling. Okay. Did anybody try the whiskey? Yeah. Did we talk about it? No. But I'm saying in such a scenario, which I still enjoy sitting by a fire and having a beverage with the same array of cheeses and things. If you drink whiskey or cognac or any of those things, this is just unbelievable. It's silky, it's rich, it's complex, and it's a thinker. I mean, this is the kind of thing you meditate on. You stare into those. I mean, I think some of the old guard of beer people, they really got behind Barleywine because they were sick of being derided or dismissed by wine. I'm like, oh, it's just beer. Yeah. Garrett Oliver is one of the best people for this. He'd write about food and beer pairing, he'd be like, this can do things wine can't even do. So great Barleywines are as complex and rewarding as some of the best wines in the world. So even again, if you're not even a beer fan, you're more of a spirit and wine person, you should try some of these Barleywines. I think they'll blow you away. This whiskey is really good by the way. Yeah, it is. Let's talk about it. I just had a chocolate covered almond in preparation for drinking the whiskey. So this is the regular EH Taylor Small Batch, which we get some of every month and we got some barrels of a couple of times a year. A hundred proof bottled in Bond product. It's very viscous, got a great fruit and spice balance. Pretty classic Buffalo Trace whiskey. Yeah, absolutely. Lots of sweet fruit up front. Very spicy. I always get a lot of like strawberry and peach from Buffalo Trace. Definitely a lot of peach. This has that. Such a delicious whiskey. And I love hundred proof whiskeys too. Yeah, of course. Great. When we've got it, it's 50 bucks. Pretty great whiskey for that price. I know it was another lengthy Barleywine adventure, but this is clearly something that I am very passionate about. I think it's, you know, people used to say Barleywine is life. And I always got a big kick out of that because the people that really get into it and try some of these, they can be some of the most amazing beers you'll ever drink. So I get it. And I just hope that people will go down that road and try some of these. And maybe part of it is that people tried ones. They were a little underwhelming or under attenuated and too sweet. But you get some of these ones like we tried today. These are just on next level classics. So again, thank you, everyone, for joining us. If you enjoyed this podcast, leave us a review. Tell your friends, tell your family, your next door neighbor. Say hi to your mom. Tune in to us next week for another episode of Barrel to Bottle. Till then, I am Roger. I'm Chris. I'm Pat. I'm Greg. Keep tasting. Ooh, you said that all bedroom voice. Keep tasting.