Page 24 - Beverage Master_JuneJuly 2021

Brewery & Distillery
Craft Brewery
are still in place, and once opened, this space will warts of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry and the new
enable the brewery to have separate areas for their American oak familiar to the Bourbon industry.
mixed culture and clean spirit barrel-aged beers and Their new oak casks are air-dried for a minimum of
a unique place for people to gather. 18 months. For their Garry Oak casks, found exclu-
sively in the Pacific Northwest, air drying time is a
The Bitter Housewife, Portland, Oregon minimum of three years.

While they don’t have a formal barrel-aging pro- “Our locality is reflected both in growing region
gram, The Bitter Housewife’s collaboration with and by relationships with local brewers, wine-mak-
Bull Run Distillery allows them to explore how bar- ers, and cidermakers,” said Armstrong.
rel-aging changes bitters. As Genevieve Brazelton,
co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, said, “The For distillery manager Tyler Pederson, the chal-
result was quite tasty, and in-stead of being a one- lenges of producing barrel-aged spirits are that it’s
off product, it’s now part of our stable of bitters.” expensive, time-consuming and logistically complex.
He does not believe the pandemic had a heavy
The product demand is high enough to need more impact on the cooperage industry.
than a few barrels a year, so they currently source
bourbon or whiskey barrels from four Portland area “Our availability of new and used casks remains
distilleries. It became more difficult to obtain bar- steady and should for years to come. We will also
rels during the past year, though Brazelton is not continue to grow and develop our partnerships
sure this delay was due to Covid-19. across our region, sourcing casks from winemak-
ers as well as from breweries through the Cask
Wanderback Whiskey Company, Exchange program,” Pederson said.
Hood River, Oregon
When sourcing casks, Westland considers the
Wanderback Whiskey Company’s barrel-aged pro- provenance of the cask, the quality of the oak, the
gram includes new oak, aged naturally for at least type of spirit that will be maturing and the length
two years and heated by coopers to create a heavily of time anticipated. In the case of re-used bar-rels,
toasted, lightly charred inner surface. They also uti- they also consider the quality of its previous con-
lize previously used, yet still flavorful, barrels and tents and how long it matured the spirit, wine or
previously used “neutral” casks with very little fla- beer. They also note the distance each barrel trav-
vor remaining in the wood. eled when factoring the sustainability of their cask
program.
According to co-owner Sasha Muir, the challenges
of barrel-aging include casks that leak, wood that Westward Whiskey, Seattle, Washington
can vary in its flavor profile, variations in how the
cooper heats the wood, the environment the bar- According to Christian Krogstad, Westward
rels rest in and surrounding odors in the area of the Whiskey’s founder and Master Distiller, they’ve
casks. reimagined single malt. “That spirit of creativity is
paramount to everything that we do. For us, that
Wanderback Whiskey sources its barrels from sev- means playing with different casks.”
eral brokers around the country. As coopers were
more than happy to provide barrels to them during The majority of their new American oak light-
Covid, they did not notice any signifi-cant changes ly-charred barrels come from Kelvin Cooperage.
over the last year. “Our program will likely remain They also play around with different wine and beer
the same once Covid has passed,” Muir said. finishes using casks obtained from their brewing
and winemaking friends throughout the Northwest.
Westland Distillery, Seattle, Washington While their tasting room took a hit during Covid,
once direct shipping was available throughout
In Master Blender Shane Armstrong’s estimation, Oregon, they were able to sell some of their smaller
the arc of tradition, innovation and locality that Oregon- and distillery-only projects.
guides Westland Distillery is reflected in their cask
program, which includes the Scotch whisky stal-

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