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Brewery & Distillery
Craft Brewery
Among the ongoing challenges they face is finding duction on that barrel-aged product. In a post-Covid
space to store the barrels and the time in-volved in world, Hastings hopes their online sales, which have
monitoring their barrels. During the pandemic, they given them access to global markets, will continue.
could not give customers draft pours. However, this “For us, barrels are an essential part of making what
lack of draft sales led to an increase in bottling and we produce, and if we’re able to grow connections
longer barrel-aging, as well as an increase in their with quality-minded consumers through technology,
club memberships. our barrel program will keep growing too,” he said.

Liberty Ciderworks, Spokane, Washington pFriem Family Brewers, Hood River, Oregon

Rick Hastings, Liberty Ciderworks’ owner and cider- The ethos of pFriem Family Brewer’s barrel-aged
maker, pointed to the need to barrel-age ci-ders program is emblematic of their overall brew-ing
when using tannic, cider-specific varietals. “Most of style. Josh pFriem, Brewmaster and co-founder,
the time, there’s a real benefit in allow-ing the type said, “We take a historical approach and look at it
of micro-oxygenation barrels offer to occur versus through a modern, innovative and pFriem lens.”
aging in a stainless tank.”
For their funky and mix-culture beers, they search
They use wheat whiskey, gin and bourbon barrels, out high-quality, primarily French, oak wine barrels,
mostly from Dry Fly Distillery, along with red wine while they also work with a wide range of producers
barrels to extract flavors that compliment different for their distiller beers.
apple varietals. They also use barrels as neutral con-
tainers. The biggest thing that impacted pFriem’s bar-
rel-aged program during the pandemic was their
During Covid-19, their cider club and online inability to sell their beer on draft. Also, pre-pan-
sales grew. In particular, they found a heightened demic, they were about to open their new bar-
demand for their pommeau and have tripled pro- rel-aged facility in Cascade Locks, Oregon. Plans

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