Framingham, MA — Exhibit ‘A’ Brewing Company’s barrel-aging program is now underway as they recently filled six whiskey barrels with a newly brewed barleywine. “We are letting the beer tell us what it wants to do”, said co-owner and Master Brewer Matthew Steinberg. This high ABV beer (it’s still fermenting so the final ABV won’t be known for a bit) has a lot of possibilities. “This beer will condition for an extended period of time. We’ll evaluate it at various stages to determine exactly what we’ll do with it. We could dry hop it and release it as-is, blend it with the whiskey barrel aged version or something somewhere in between. We just don’t know. That’s the fun part of working with a living product” explains Steinberg. “We are probably looking at a late Winter or early Spring release.” Exhibit ‘A’ will be posting updates on this beer on social media so you can follow it’s progress.
This marks the beginning of Exhibit ‘A’ Brewing Company’s barrel program. There are basically two different ways to use barrels in the brewery. The first is to use spirit barrels and age beer in them so they absorb the flavors of the barrel’s previous occupants. The other is to use the microflora from inoculated clean barrels or used wine barrels to create interesting sour beers. Both are included in future plans for Exhibit ‘A’ Brewing. A portion of the barleywine was put into six whiskey barrels from Breukelen Distilling in New York and will extract nice caramel and vanilla flavors from the oak as well as from residual whiskey that the wood has absorbed. Additional barrels will be set aside for future sour beer production.
Barleywine is a style of beer that originated in England in the 18th Century as an alternative at the table to wine and often carried a similar level of alcohol to wine. Exhibit ‘A’ brewed theirs with 100% Simpson’s Maris Otter malt, a high quality traditional English malt, along with a 4 hour boil to get good caramelization of the wort which gives barleywine a characteristic caramel and molasses flavor and deep ruby color.
About Exhibit ‘A’ Brewing Company
Exhibit ‘A’ Brewing Company opened their doors in the old Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers location in Framingham on September 3, 2016. They are a small craft brewery with a focus on high quality and flavorful ales. Beer has always been about people and stories and they offer a fun look at storytelling through beer with a subtle nod towards the meaning of life. For more information visit www.exhibit-a-brewing.com.