From barrel aging in homebrewing to barrel aging at the brewery

Barrel Aging is a well established tradition in brewing and we started to apply it since we homebrewed so it was normal to start doing this also at the brewery.
The beer ages with the aim to convey the unique character of the wood and the flavour of what has previously been in the barrel.
When we homebrewed at home we used a small bourbon barrel of 20 liters from a small distillery from the United States, so for the first batch we decided to go with similar aromas and we chose the Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey barrels because of their unique flavour. We were impressed by the balanced sweet and oaky character of this whiskey as well as by the vanilla and caramel notes.

Brewing a Belgian inspired Quadrupel

Back in 2017, in October, in full licensing process to produce and sell beer, we brewed this beer as our third beer from our portfolio, after Oriel Blond and Oriel Dubbel. We choose five types of malt from Germany and Belgium malt houses, two types of Slovenian hops from a small Slovenian farm, of course Belgian dark candi syrup, which is often use in this type of beer and last but not least, a special blend of liquid Belgian strain yeasts. After one month of primary fermentation in the tank, we moved the beer into two Jack Daniel’s barrels of 190 liters and forgot about it for the next six months.

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About the process

Brewing beer is not as difficult as everyone thinks. Yes, you may need some knowledge in chemistry, but it may be enough just to read and read some books about the process of brewing and just practice. And not to forget about creativity. When the brewer is creative, the beer will be good. You can find so much information nowadays about beers and how they are made, the only thing that you need is just time for it and some interest.

But with all this information, I realized that not everyone who drinks beer knows how beer is made. Yes, we all know about Reinheitsgebot or the German Beer Purity Law which says loud and clear that beer is made of water, hops and barley. They forgot about the yeast, but no worries, they did not consider it an ingredient in 1516.

Ingredients for beer

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Once upon a time

More precisely in the summer of 2010, we brewed our first beer kit. At the beginning I did not take it seriously, I thought it was just something Laurentiu wants to try once to see how it is. When we met, he told me he is passionate about beer, collecting crown caps from beers all over the world.
At that time I didn’t know much about beer. To be honest, like most of the people, I thought that beer is that clear, yellowish, whatever beverage. And for sure not for my taste. But I was so wrong and I am thinking now that so many people don’t have any clue about beer, being fooled by the big companies with their marketing campaigns.

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