Page 22 - Beverage Master_JuneJuly 2021

Brewery & Distillery
Craft Brewery
challenge during Covid-19, Parker said there were Deschutes Brewery, Bend, Oregon
challenges in staying socially distanced when deal-
ing with deliveries and warehousing. “It made us Deschutes Brewery’s barrel-aging program began
slower, but we had nothing but time.” in 2008 and currently consists of approximate-ly
800 barrels and six wood-aging vessels. These bar-
With breweries coming back online, Parker expects rel-aged projects generally fall into one of two cat-
to have more opportunities to partner for barrel egories: beers aged in spirit barrels that are meant
exchanges. “The flavor swaps are great!” to highlight the spirit of choice, and mixed culture
sour and wild beers that use neutral barrels as aging
During 2020, Copperworks produced more whiskey vessels. This program fits in with their mission as a
than in prior years. “With no tasting room custom- conduit to continually explore new expressions of
ers, special events, classes, tours, competitions, beer using unique, high-quality ingredients.
conferences or other gatherings – all of which we
miss terribly – and after making all the hand san- According to Ben Kehs, assistant Brewmaster and
itizer we could, we simply focused exclusively on Barrel Master, Deschutes experienced some minor
distilling, blending and bottling whiskey (and a few shipping delays and general uncertainty regarding
cask-finished gins).” freight times and costs during the pan-demic. “For
wine barrel sourcing, we did find that some of our
Since they could not introduce themselves to new local suppliers were releasing fewer barrels from
customers through bars, restaurants and their tast- their programs as their sales were affected. The
ing room during Covid-19 shutdowns, they went majority of volume for our barrel-aged products
online to introduce new releases via video blogs, end up in a bottle instead of a keg, so we did not
virtual tours and tastings, direct emails and social experience a big disruption with the shutdown of
media. on-premise accounts, but the closure of our pubs
made us look at expand-ing our direct-to-consumer
Ecliptic Brewing, Portland, Oregon business.”

Right after Ecliptic Brewing opened in Fall 2013, Finnriver Farm & Cidery,
one of the first beers John Harris made was Orange Chimacum, Washington
Giant Barleywine, which went straight into barrels
for a year. The beer debuted in 2014, and every According to Andrew Byers, Head Cidermaker and
year since, a new batch has been released. co-owner, Finnriver Farm & Cidery’s barrel pro-
According to Harris, barrel-aging is important to gram allows them a pathway to a greater depth
them. “We had a two-year drought where we of expression, a treatise of tannins from fruit and
could not lay down any barrels due to production wood and a place to bring it all together. “Like
demands. It has been great to get back to this again Finnriver, barrels are a place to weave the commu-
and get the creative process going more. We have nity fabric, a place to discuss origins – a place to
many projects going right now!” reconnect people to the land that sus-tains them.”

In his estimation, adding the spirit of the wood “To make phenomenal barreled cider, you need to
barrel to the base beer is a real joy. “Seeing what start with phenomenal fruit, dynamic and healthy
the barrel does to the beer – whether it be a bour- yeast and a vision of your finale,” Byers said. In his
bon, rye, Sangiovese red wine, white wine – it’s estimation, the micro-oxygenation of barrel time
all an experiment hoping for a good outcome. The is the place to mellow harsh polyphenols and the
downside is sometimes projects or individual barrels opportunity to extract those pithy ellagic tannins
go south and need to be dumped.” from the oak.

Thankfully Covid-19 did not impact their barrel-ag- Finnriver seeks out barrels from regionally-based
ing program. Moving forward, they will con-tinue to whiskey producers – historically High West,
use traditional spirit barrels but will be putting cre- Woodinville Whiskey and now Bainbridge Organic
ative spins on the beer before releas-ing. “The mar- Distilling – and purchases a small number of fresh
ket is looking for more than a bourbon-aged stout whiskey barrels each year. Occasionally, neighbors
without any twists. 2021 will be fun!” will reach out with neutral wine barrels.

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