The Barrel Room is born ;)

Barrel aging on my own is now a reality!!  Last week I purchased a 7-gallon oak barrel from Woodinville Whiskey Company that was recently emptied of their Rye Whiskey.  For the first use, I will be filling it with the American Barleywine brewed last weekend.  The hope for this first use is to age the Barleywine in the barrel and extract oak and rye whiskey flavors.  Then soon after that is transferred out, to get a 2nd use of it with perhaps an Imperial Porter.  After that I think most of the rye whiskey flavors will be stripped out and then the barrel will have to be cleaned-up for future use as a sour barrel or maybe even some oak-aged saisons (yum!!).  I know plenty about drinking barrel aged beers but next to nothing about making them and using a barrel, so this is very exciting and there will be plenty of updates to come!!