Sip With Us Saturday was started to reinforce the bonds that exist between like minded beer drinkers. Whether out with friends on a Saturday night, or alone at home, it is nice to know that the beer in your hand is at the same moment being enjoyed by a friend who very well be at the other end of your state, country, or planet. How could this not enhance the experience that is beer?
Since Beer and Whiskey Bros and Thank Heaven for Beer found themselves regularly participating in Sip With Us Saturday, they found it fitting to promote it together and choose Satuday Beers together as well, in the hopes of fostering more interest on their respective sites. The door is always open for more beer websites to join.
So without further ado, this week’s Sip With Us Saturday beer being, theme based and not product specific, is any bourbon aged beer: quite appropriate due to the nature of the Beer and Whiskey Bros as well as Jim’s first homebrew.
There choices aplenty when it comes to bourbon aged beer, and if you’ve never experienced a bourbon aged beer, you really need to try one out this week. If you don’t like it, try another. Often the first beer of a style is off putting; however, the more one tests the waters the more comfortable it becomes.
Most bourbon aged beer is just that: bourbon aged. Meaning, the brewer ages a sturdy beer in old barrels that were once used to condition whiskey. In doing so the beer not only picks up the flavor of the residual whiskey, but also oak, and perhaps even a little funkiness, since oak is porous and allows other “stuff” to permeate the beer. There are some brewers who add whiskey directly to the brew to simulate aging, though.
We are looking forward to drinking with you this week.
Cheers!
[...] us too. So much so that they’ve invited us to participate in their famous weekly ritual, Sip With Us Saturday. For the unfamiliar, SWUS is a great way to spend time together while being [...]
Hey guys, Don and I are thrilled to be doing this with you. We’ve put a sister post on our site and can’t wait to crack open a couple of barrel aged goodies this Saturday night.
On the homebrew front, I dropped my oak chips into my porter last night, after letting them steep in some Elijah Craig 12YO bourbon for a few weeks. I also dumped in the bourbon for good measure. It’ll be ready to bottle in 10 days and ready to drink four weeks later. I can’t wait to try it!
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Jim,
I’m sure your beer will be great. Did your gravity get in line?
We’re both really glad that we get to team up with you guys.
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Ditto! Excited for this one. What bourbon aged beer are you all going to be drinking?
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I might bust out my Firestone 13…not sure just yet but I’m going to try to drink something I already have. Thought about Goose Island BCS. I’m still really thinking it through.
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I’m going to having a Weyerbacher Heresy and might treat myself to one of the KBS’s I have stashed.
As to my home brews, the gravity of my wheat settled out at 1.013, which is good. The porter was still in the low 1.020′s a week ago, but it had dropped a bit. I poured the sample between two glasses 20 times before measuring it like you advised, Mike, and maybe that’s what accounts for the difference. I dunno.
My calculations say the beer has an ABV of 6% or so, plus whatever the bourbon adds. Perhaps I’ve accidentally crafted a session porter.
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Maybe! Once the bourbon is in there, you won’t have a session porter anymore. Also, the bit of sweetness will be good for the ABV. I’m glad that 20 pours helped out.
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