Welcome to another edition of Barrel to Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot. I am your host, Kristen Ellis. I'm here with my partner in crime, Jeff Carlin. What's up, Jeff? How are you doing, Kristen? I'm excited for this week. I'm told we're gonna do infused beers. Exactly, so really, really big on the kind of what's going on in the world of beer is all of these different variants on Barrel-aged stouts. So our genius and my associate over at Binny's Beverage Depot, his name is Roger, he's here, we're not just talking about him. Roger, say hi so the people know I'm not crazy. Hi, how you doing? So he came up with this great idea. He's kind of spearheading this thing, which is infusing your own barrel-aged stout to make your own variants at home. It's genius. This is something I've never seen before. Roger came in and he's like, well, I've got some great barrel-aged stout. I'm like, I love barrel-aged stout, let's do this. But then he pulls out a couple of French presses and then things get weird. Weird in the best sense. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, weird makes the world go round. Exactly. Roger, how did you come up with this? Where did you see this first? What was the genesis of this infuse-your-own stout? I actually just went to a tasting with some friends and they were playing around with it. Part of the appeal, like you said, is that everybody wants these variants and a lot of times they're very hard to come by. Kind of plays off the idea of a thing called a randal, which originally it was designed to hold hops, but people started putting all sorts of different things in there, spices, fruits, herbs, all sorts of stuff. This is sort of an attempt to do your own kind of randling of beer at home. So we're using stout today. Can you give us a definition of that style of beer? Sure, absolutely. Stout has been around for quite some time. The term actually dates to the early 1700s or so in Great Britain. There was a very popular style of beer called Porter, which tended to be about a multi-centric beer around like 6% or 7% alcohol on the stronger side. It kind of had a little bit of a bubble and it burst and some of the breweries started closing. And the porters that survived tended to be the ones that were the stouter variety. The word stout was essentially synonymous with the word strong. People kind of developed a taste and a liking for the stronger, bolder flavors as well as higher alcohol in the stouter porters. Every stout is a porter, essentially, but just stronger in alcohol and more concentrated in flavor. Correct. So within that style, how does barrel aging affect stout? Lots of different variations on stout. Putting something in a barrel, much like aging whiskey, you're waiting for the time to do its magic on the spirit. When you put the stout in the barrel, you're trying to absorb some of that previous character from whatever was in the barrel. I would say most often we're talking about bourbon barrels that craft breweries are searching for and they're putting bigger beers in them and letting them rest. Typically, these beers are sometimes brewed to be almost like over the top and intense when they're young and fresh, and they need a little bit of time to rest in those barrels. Not only to absorb all the flavors from the previous spirit, but also just to let the flavors of their own complexity kind of mellow out and come together. Remember, too, when we're talking about stouts, that there's so many different styles. The most popular stout that a lot of people are familiar with would be Guinness. That's actually a dry stout and it's lower ABV, whereas what we're drinking today is the complete opposite end of the spectrum. We're drinking what's called an imperial stout, which actually dates back to the Russian imperial czars, Catherine the Great of Russia. She was a pretty cool forward-thinking lady. She smoked cigars and really loved rich, heavy, high alcohol stouts that were brewed in England. Part of the reason that they were so high in alcohol was that they needed to make that journey without refrigeration and survive. This way with the higher ABV wouldn't be spoiled or soured, and because of that, this term has stuck to this day of an Imperial stout. So, why would an Imperial be better than a dry stout for this exercise? Typically, a lot of the stouts that the breweries themselves are releasing that have these intense flavors where they use adjuncts and they infuse flavors, they tend to infuse the Imperial stout style. The best thing about infusing things is that it's completely up to you. You can play around with amounts, styles. So, you definitely could use just a normal stout. I tend to think that the complexity of an Imperial stout, and a lot of them tend to be a little thicker, heavier mouth feel. Some of them tend to have a touch of sweetness. That blends itself nicely to the flavor. Sugar does, in all things, kind of help with blending, whether it's wine or beer, you name it. If there's a bit of sugar, residual sugar, whatnot, it kind of helps to take on those various flavors. So I can only imagine here in this infusing practice, we're going to see that sort of example come true. Well, let's turn to this exercise. So we've used here, is it Dragon's Milk? That's what we're rolling with? Correct. Okay. So, and Dragon's Milk is kind of like the benchmark Imperial Stout, right? It's one of the most popular barrel-aged Imperial Stouts on the market. New Holland Brewing's been making it since 2001. So whereas in today's market, there's a lot of people that are a year or two old and almost seem like veterans, these guys are true veterans in the Midwest craft scene. And one of the best things about this and why I chose it is that the Imperial Stout style is sometimes only released sporadically from breweries. It'll be a special occasion type beer. And since a lot of these stouts can be aged for months at a time, if not a little bit over a year, they aren't readily available normally. But since New Holland realized they hit such a home run with this and it became so wildly popular, they focus almost exclusively, more than half of their production is all Dragon's Milk oriented. So besides being a delicious Imperial Stout, it is something you can actually walk into the store and buy whenever you want it. So if you don't know Imperial Stout is a style and you're interested, you don't have to chase after some kind of unicorn thing here, we're gonna have this all the time. No waiting in lines, no begging to see if they have an allotment or back room. This is something that you can buy with confidence right off the shelf. I love confidence. Cool. All right. So on our left here, Jeff, we've got the Dragon's Milk, the Bourbon Barrel-Age Stout. It's 11 percent ABV. This is kind of your anchor. So this is just the straight up pure stout on its own. And then we've got four different infusions that Roger has prepared for us. Let's just take it one by one, talk me through kind of the process of how you infuse and what I can expect from this particular infusion. Sure. So again, the name of the game with this is experimentation. It's never going to be the same recipe for one person versus another. And that's the benefit of it. It's going to be fun. It's going to be all about how much the different ingredients are you going to put in. There's a lot of trial and error with this. Have you ever seen Dances with Wolves? Sure. You know when he's making coffee for the Sioux Indian tribe and the guy puts all the sugar in his cup? That's what this reminds me of. I would say in general, one of the things to remember is that less is more. Conversely, what I'd like you to do with your cup that's just the plain Dragon's Milk, try Dragon's Milk on its own so you get a control and a base. But then also, after you sample each infusion, if you think it's a little too intense, you can then dial it back by adding some of the regular Dragon's Milk. And you're doing it with a French press, not like a traditional coffee maker. There's no heat involved here. You're just trying to get the essence to break down in the Dragon's Milk itself and then filter it with a French press. Exactly. The press is really just there to be a filter. Sure. And I did these at room temp because typically Imperial stouts you want to serve cool, not cold, and they're quite delicious at room temperature. If you want to infuse other styles of beers, you can definitely try and play around with that. You might want to keep the French press in a refrigerator while it steeps. Oh, that's a good idea. So. So the first one that we have here is something that I played around with in lots of different variations. And I kind of came up with this as something I thought was pretty unique and interesting. This involves forest honey, which is, if you have any kind of geeky honey aficionados out there. I'm sure you do. Not necessarily a honey you come across all the time. You can definitely just use whatever type of honey you enjoy. But forest honey is unique in that it is a combination of honeydew pollen, where bees are, instead of just collecting pollen from flowers, they're actually eating a honeydew, which is a sticky substance excreted by aphids eating sap from trees. It sounds gross, but it's awesome. I mean, it sounds gross to begin with, but once it's in my palate, it sounds like it's going to be amazing. It's fruitier, typically richer, much darker in color. What I did, when you infuse with honey, it really helps to mix the honey before you put it into the French press with just a little bit of warm water, and then that way it'll dissolve better into solution. So you're just taking a couple of tablespoons worth here in a French press? For one bottle of beers, which is what I did, this is around a tablespoon of honey. And then I also put in there a big handful of Black Mission figs, one of my favorite things to infuse into beers. This is awesome. The honey really comes through on the nose. It smells artisanal. Artisanal, yeah, absolutely. Most people, you take a stout and people are like, oh, it's bitter, it's biting, it's kind of got that flavor. This takes that flavor and then sweeten it and softens it a little bit with the honey and the figs. That's really good. The fig component is really, it's quite nice here. Yeah, it finishes it. Like you said, it starts with the honey and it finishes with the fig. It's really good. Thanks. I'm glad you enjoy it. And this was steeped around a half an hour or so. The longer you let it sit, the bolder the flavors are going to be. Some people, again, might get a little turned off by the fact that at this point, these are essentially flat or still. So what you can do, then, is pour a little bit of fresh out of the bottle, whatever stout you've been using over the top to brighten it up a little bit, add a little bit of carb. And if, again, if you think this was maybe a little bit touch too sweet, adding some of the fresh stuff will balance that out. Well, you could just pretend you're Catherine the Great, because this is certainly how she drank it back in the day. Exactly. But if I'm having a family get together in the fall here and I want to impress some people, I'll make the turkey, I'll make the stuffing, I'll do this, and I'll put this off to the side as kind of an afternoon thing and bring this out and say, hey, Have you had stouts? You've not had stouts. You don't. You can't handle the stout. Exactly. I mean, I would bring this out and present to my friends and family, and they would be like, whoa, I hate stout. This is amazing. I think this, I would like to eat cured meat, like prosciutto with this. I think it would be killer. Absolutely. Yeah. It needs salt and then just like out of the park. Absolutely. This is really good. Why didn't you bring prosciutto, Roger? Yeah. Why? Next time, more food and beer pairing. Speaking of which, once you end up emptying your French press and you have these figs sitting at the bottom. And they're delicious. Oh my God. Salad. Roger, you give me everything I need to do for Thanksgiving. It's right here. You guys are so smart. First course and final course. These are delicious on top of ice cream. Oh, sold. Jeff is so excited. I can't tell you. I mean, I love a stout. I love infusing things because I'm a big coffee guy. I love doing my cold press, my French press at home. And this is way better. I've been using it like a chump just for coffee. I know what to get you for Christmas now. Figs. I love figs. Can't go wrong with figs. Okay. Number two, we've got the dragon's milk infused with dried raspberries. Raspberries. So again, the figs were not that fresh. Figs are actually becoming more readily available now, but typically you see them dried. I recommend that whenever you're doing these infusions, you utilize dried fruits. The fresh as much as you'd think fresh would be better. Tend to not impart quite as much flavor as utilizing the dry. Plus, I would imagine that they're pretty acidic because I just tasted this raspberry. And the one thing I noticed is the acid levels in this particular infusion, is it just jumps. You can really, I mean, the raspberry is really apparent here. It does. It stands out. So if you're going to get less is more with these dried raspberries, then I say I'm on that train because this is delicious. Yeah. It's very good. What's the next one you got on tap for us? So this one, one of the classic additions for a lot of adjunct or variant stouts is coconut. It's very popular these days. And when it comes to infusing coconut, again, I would recommend going with flakes. You could also toast the flakes to your liking. I ended up using some roasted flakes here, which are still white in color. The longer that you toast or roast them, the nuttier the color, yeah, the browner. You can find the larger pieces that are roasted. This is good, too. I love this. I don't know which one I liked the most. That first one, I was like, oh, that was great. The second one, I'm like, oh, that's really good, too. The third one, I'm like, ugh. Yeah, it's just mind-blowing. Yeah, cool. So to add a little bit of complexity to this, I also crushed some allspice berries. This is kind of my riff on almost a tiki cocktail. A lot of tiki cocktails have some spicy components via the pimento dram is actually an allspice liqueur that they use. Spice with the coconut is a classic delicious combination. Again here, one thing that's important to remember with this is recommend using whole spices and gently crushing them versus using a pre-ground or pre-crush spice. The pre-ground spice, besides being fresher, it's just, the pre-ground would be too overbearing. Even if you put a really miniscule amount. Sure, there's a lot of extra oils in those things. So you definitely wanna go with just the whole allspice berries, give them a gentle crush. I just used a muddler, you could use the back of a spoon or a mortar and pestle. Less is more, allspice definitely a kind of pervasive spice. You don't need that much to get a lot of flavor. I feel like the progression here has just been good, better, best, like it's fantastic. You did this on, you got me. Hook, line, and sinker, man. You're killing it, Roger, you're killing it, as they say. What's the last one you got for us this week? The first time I ever did infusions, this was a surprise to me that I never would have thought of this, but cinnamon breakfast cereal is what's incorporated in the last one. Man, it smells like third grade. But it smells just like cinnamon toast crunch. I love that cereal. My mom would buy a box of it. I have two brothers, so they ate everything. She would have to almost hide it because she would buy it maybe 10 in the morning and by 2 in the afternoon, the boys would just kill it. I mean, we loved it at home. So I really like this a lot. This is hitting at all the nostalgic bases that I needed to hit to really love it. Part of what is so neat about this is that it infuses almost instantly. You really don't have to wait too long. Part of the reason that the breakfast cereal works is that when we think cinnamon, we're usually really thinking cinnamon and sugar. Cinnamon and sugar, yeah. I've crushed up plenty of cinnamon sticks before. I've ground fresh cinnamon. And the problem is that it's gonna impart some bitterness to it. It'll add some of the cinnamon flavor, but what your mind is really looking for is cinnamon and sugar. That's sugar, yeah. As we wrap another great edition of Barrel to Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot, we cannot go anywhere without our Q&A. Kristen, who's this week? This week, Tofer from Deerfield asks, I like dark beers, but I'm looking for something a bit lighter. Roger, what can we tell Tofer to buy that's gonna give him what he wants? One of the best light beer options in existence is Dry Irish Stout. The most famous one, of course, would be Guinness. A lot of people talk about Guinness and say, oh, I don't like Guinness, it's too heavy. Guinness might seem heavy because of its richness and flavor, but it's actually so light, not only in calories, but also just in gravity, that it floats on other beer. So the famous black and tan or half and half, your heavy stout in Guinness is actually so light, it's floating on top of a lager. I guess people just don't make that connection. I think a lot of people have heard of a black and tan or a half and half, but they don't think because it floats, it's actually lighter. And if they're looking for lighter or less calories, alcohol being more calorically dense than even sugar, they're really winning there with a beer like Guinness. Not all stouts are necessarily high ABV or high calorie. Dry Irish is great. What else can we do? Also for something that's rich in flavor, but not necessarily that high in ABV, would be a Schwarzbier, German black lager. The Schwarz is with that beer. Schwarz be with you. Schwarz is strong with this one. Strong with you, Roger, that's for sure. Well, for another week of Barrel to Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot, I'm Jeff Carlin with always the great and talented Kristen Ellis. You had me at Stout. Yeah, me too. That's my jam. It's my cinnamon sugar jam. And of course, if you want to get a question in here with us for Barrel to Bottle, where do we go? Yes, to win that $20 gift card and to be infamous on Binny's Beverage Depot. Or just famous. No, infamous. Once it's out, it's on the internet, dude. That's true. It's forever. Go ahead and find us at Binny's Bev on Twitter. We'll pick your question if it rocks, and we're going to talk about it on our podcast. If you enjoyed this, we hope to see you next week. Barrel to Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot. I'm Kristen. Keep tasting. Have fun.