New innovations in beer from the wood

October 6, 2007: Wood is good — especially when it comes to maturing beer. That's the conclusion of three of the world's leading brewers who addressed the annual seminar of the British Guild of Beer Writers.

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Those attending the seminar, held at the innovative Thornbridge Brewery, in Derbyshire, were able to sample the flavours and aromatic qualities that different wooden barrels can bring to beer.

Beer was once stored in barrels made of oak, used because they did not taint the drink. However, the widespread use of the practice stopped in the 1960s as brewers moved over to steel or aluminum containers.

But today craft brewers are experimenting with wooden barrels. Some of these have already contained spirits or wine to add new tastes and aromatic complexity to beer.

In wine making, oak casks have a positive effect on wine development, in terms of quality and flavour, while in whisky ageing, wood promotes a significant transformation in the spirit.

Brooklyn Brewery’s head brewer Garrett Oliver, visiting from New York, told the seminar: “The original use of wooden barrels was for the wood to have as little influence as possible. Now, however, brewers are actively looking to use wood as an ingredient to flavour their beers. They are not using wood in a traditional way — what the brewers are doing is innovative.

“They are looking for new flavours and aromas, which can be picked up from the wood and what was stored in the container before.”.

Innis & Gunn was first brewer in the UK to popularise the use of wood for flavouring beer – and it all happened by accident. Managing director Dougal Sharp said some beer was being stored in whisky barrels, for use by a distillery. But when a consumer taste panel sampled it, it got the highest marks ever for one of his beers.

“It might have been serendipity at first, but we had a success on our hands as drinkers loved the wonderful flavours the wood imparted.”

He described how Innis & Gunn is continuing to marry different beer styles with oak casks that held whisky and other spirits, although he admitted it didn’t always work.

Fuller’s head brewer John Keeling said he was developing a wood-aged beer that he hoped would be commercially successful. “It all started after I visited a friend who makes Glenmorangie. I drank some whisky and drank some beer and wondered what would happen if I put the two together."

He went on to describe how he was now conditioning beer in containers from different whiskies, some of which he hoped would become commercial products available to the general public.

“Each whisky, brings its own unique contribution to the beer,” said Mr Keeling.

British Guild of Beer Writers chairman, Tim Hampson, said: “Beer might have an ancient relationship with wood, but wood ageing is at the leading edge of new thinking on making beer.

“Wood ageing has unlocked a chorus of tastes and flavours, which makes the drinking of a beer even more exciting and rewarding.

“Many wine drinkers search out world famous, vintage wines for the attributes that wood can bring to its taste. Those drinkers can now experience an even greater myriad of stimulating flavours in beer.

“Beer lovers can look forward to some exciting new beers which have been aged in barrels which once contained whisky, rum, Madeira, rum, wine or even Bourbon.”

The climax of the event was a tasting of Thornbridge’s wood-aged work-in-progress barley wine and its chestnut-honey beer. Afterwards, Thornbridge also presented a tasting of its St Petersburg Imperial Russian Stout, which had been finished in three separate whisky barrels.

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