When Jonathan and I first began barrel-aging beers in our basements, we accumulated a series of small oak barrels, ranging from 5 to 15 gallon capacities. Those early barrels produced amazing results for us as homebrewers and now we’re thrilled to show case most of our original barrels in our Hutchinson taproom.
One of the advantages of small barrels is how quickly they mature, in just 2-5 months, opposed to their fullsize counterparts that often take 9-18 months to reach optimal flavor and character maturity.
On Thursday, January 4th, 2019, we will release the second round of beer from our small barrel program. This time we are releasing the first iteration of Red Tail, a Flanders Red-style ale.
Flanders Red is one of our favorite styles to make (and drink!) and many of our fullsize barrels are filled with the style. It is a sour red ale that is historically always barrel-aged for extended periods of time.
For this release, we aged the beer in blue corn whiskey barrels from Balcones Distilling in Waco, TX. These barrels have previously aged copious amounts of beer so they no longer contribute any character from the whiskey, but they do lend wonderful vanilla and oak characters. Combined with the rich fruity flavor and aroma of the Flanders Red, the final result is a beer that pours an amber-red and has high acidity and intense notes of fruit, vanilla, and oak.
We have just two kegs available so there will be no growler fills available. This release is draft only in the Hutchinson taproom, which is located at:
111 W 2nd Ave
Ste C
Hutchinson, KS 67501
The taproom hours are:
- Thursday: 3PM – 8PM
- Friday: 11AM – 8PM
- Saturday: 11AM – 8PM
Come out and join us for the tapping of our first Flanders Red! It may be the first, but there are many more to come over the next year!