The Barrel
I’ve made no illusions about the fact that I am a massive brewing nerd. The blending of science and art to create something as old as civilization yet entirely brand new. You can’t know where you’re headed unless you take the time to look back and figure out how you got to this point. This idea becomes tangible when learning how to work and brew with barrels.
Barrels are old, old things and marvelous examples of engineering and craft. Just as pallets are essential to modern day commerce, barrels and the coopers that made them were indispensable to trade throughout history. They were used to store and transport all manner of goods from produce to gunpowder. The handmade curves and bulge of the barrel allow it to be handled by a single person. A single person can tip a full barrel over, roll it, turn it on a dime, and stand it back up surprisingly easily.
For obvious reasons, the most difficult barrels to make were watertight barrels. The staves and heads that make up the sides and ends of the barrels must be sawn, shaved, and shaped masterfully so as to not leak whatsoever, because that’s just a waste of good beer. A good barrel does not require any sort of sealant to be watertight. The wood (if put together well) will be naturally watertight and become even more so when filled. This was all done entirely by hand well before the industrial revolution and modern machining.
The flavor most people associate with barrel aging is simply the flavor of the wood that beer or liquor was stored in, typically charred white oak. The inside of each barrel is toasted to a specific temperature for a specific time to achieve the desired flavor. Light toast will give vanilla and leave far more oaky, tannic flavors. A moderate toast will give stronger vanilla, toffee, and even some spice. Dark toast can give coffee, chocolate, and some smoky flavors. Back in the pre-industrial barrel making heyday, some coopers lined their barrels with pitch to both enhance the watertightness and prevent the flavors of the wood from leeching into the beer.
The world of spirits and wine are pretty much all that’s left of the once massive barrel-making business. In the modern day, barrels and the coopers that make them are not as necessary to global commerce as they used to be, but you can’t make bourbon without a fresh barrel - and I mean that in the legal sense! Bourbon legally must be aged in a fresh white oak barrel, after which it can be used for anything like another type of whiskey, gin, wine, or even beer! There will always be bourbon barrels for sale and some distillers even give them away, because at some point they’re just taking up space. So we crafty brewers talked to our friends in the distilling world and decided to take a few bourbon barrels off their hands and give barrel aging a try. This is why you will often see bourbon barrel aged beers and not gin or cab sauv barrels.
The way barrel aging works for beers is fairly simple. The beer ought to be fairly high ABV (generally above 7%, but the higher the better) as standard strength beers contain a lot of nutrients that bacteria love (compared to wine and spirits) and they do not have enough alcohol to ward off spoilage bacteria. The beer also ought to be a style that can withstand some oxygen and aging: stouts, barleywines, or very sharp sours. IPAs and anything with a lot of hops do not handle aging gracefully and any sort of bitterness just doesn’t taste good with tannic oaky flavors.
Barrel aging will impart the characteristics of the wood it is made of as well as whatever previously inhabited the barrel like a wine, spirit, or other beer. Most any tight grained hardwood will work for a barrel, including fruit wood. Barrel aging a beer requires the brewer to be less rigid in their work and instead be more artistic and listen to what the beer is telling you. There is no set timeline to be followed - there are far too many variables between type of wood, region it was grown, time it was harvested, how many times has the barrel been used before, etc. The beer is ready when it tastes ready and no two batches will be the same. It all comes down to patience and a discerning palate.
Brewing Vocabulary 101
I try to avoid using jargon and lingo when writing these talks, but that’s not very fun so now I’ve decided to let you in on the super secret and very cool and not dorky vocabulary brewers use to talk about beer and brewing. They might even help on your next crossword!
Brite - A term used to describe finished beer and a term for the last tank beer touches before being drinkable (Brite Tank). This is where beer carbonates and becomes crystal clear, thus making it shine brighter too!
Ester - a type of molecule produced by yeast that is responsible for some of the fruity flavors in beer. They’ll typically be described as apple or pear, but can also be strawberry and even fruit punch-like.
Hop-cano - When hops are added to a partially carbonated beer (like during dry hopping) it can cause extreme foaming (called breakout) which then launches a sticky mess of hops and beer out of the top of the tank. You’ll go home looking terrible and smelling great! If you look closely at Mountain Toad’s ceiling above the fermenters you might see some staining!
Hop Creep - Not just a fun nickname for the IPA lovers in your life, but the phenomenon of a dry hop restarting fermentation after it had already stopped. Hop creep can lead to a slightly higher ABV in dry hopped beers.
Krausen - A foamy, sticky mess made up of protein and yeast that adheres to the walls of the fermenters during fermentation. It’s a pain to wash off!
Liquor - literally just water but used for brewing. Can be treated with minerals and ions to adjust the beer’s flavor profile.
Mash - The oatmeal-like mixture of malt and water that starts the brewing process. This is where the sugar gets extracted from the malt to create a liquid called wort.
Pitching - not just for baseball players and salespeople! Pitching is the act of adding yeast to the unfermented wort to begin fermentation. I do not recommend actually throwing the yeast unless you like cleaning up yeast.
Trub - pronounced TROOB, is the coagulated mass of protein, hops, and yeast that falls to the bottom of the fermenter during fermentation and should always be removed from the beer. Removing it is called ‘Dumping Trub’.
Wet Hop vs. Dry Hop - Dry hopping is the addition of hop pellets to a beer after fermentation has finished. Wet hopping is simply the use of fresh, unprocessed hops in brewing. Fresh hops should be used within 24hr of harvesting for best results.
Wort - The sweet, unfermented liquid that is produced from mashing. This is the liquid that will eventually become beer after it has fermented.
The Magic of the Yeast Ring
I’ve talked about farmhouse ales before and how they’re one of my favorite styles, but I’m not sure if I’ve explained why I love them so. In short: they’re magical.✨
The farmhouse style is really only defined by one ingredient: yeast. A farmhouse ale can feature any herb, spice, grain, or adjunct in the known world but there’s only one type of yeast you can use: and that’s the yeast in your farmhouse! 🏡🧪
Now you can’t ferment a beer without yeast, but we’ve been fermenting beer far longer than we’ve known what yeast is. Something we brewing humanity figured out awhile ago is that the wood and various porous surfaces of the places we brew must be what makes the beer unique. 🪵
Most famously, traditional Norwegian farmhouse brewers would have these intricate wooden rings called Kveik Rings that they would leave in the unfermented wort. As the yeast naturally found in the area ferments and multiplies it imbeds itself into the wood, ensuring that when the ring was added to future batches of beer they would have a healthy and quick start to fermentation. 🧙♂️🔁
These days, yeast scientists have isolated many of these unique Kveik strains so we can brew with them just like any other yeast. There are hundreds of different Kveik strains collected from farmhouses all across Norway—each with its own flavor personality, from sweet caramel to pineapple 🍍, toasted walnut 🌰, and even crisp lager-like profiles. 🍺
Another modern twist on this ancient magic? Open fermentation vessels (often koelschips) placed in wooden rooms. As each batch ferments, it throws yeast and bacteria into the air, embedding those wild microbes into the walls. Over time, the room itself becomes part of the brewing process—speeding up fermentation and producing those delightfully strange, funky, and beautiful flavors that define farmhouse ales.
That’s the charm. That’s the mystery. And that’s why farmhouse ales are some of the tastiest and most interesting beer styles around—and why I love them so! 😍
Adjuncts: The Hidden Heroes of Beer
You may have heard brewers refer to a beer as “adjunct-y” or maybe read a description on a menu that mentions adjunct grains. Let me tell you a bit about what that means and what those adjunct grains actually do (or don’t do in some cases).
Adjuncts, simply put, are grains or other sugary additions that are not malt. This covers nearly everything that isn’t malted barley: sugar, corn, wheat, rye, honey, quinoa, fonio, etc. - the list is essentially endless. All of these non-malt ingredients are just another lever brewers can pull to achieve their desired result in the finished beer. Think of the American Light Lager for example: very pale, very crisp, and low on flavor. These effects are achieved primarily through the use of adjuncts, usually corn or rice. Unlike malt, corn and rice add no color, but they do add a little body, and some extra sugar for the yeast to ferment. So if you were to do a side-by-side comparison between an all-malt lager and one brewed with a large percentage of corn or rice you’d notice that the all-malt beer has a darker color, a richer flavor, and sits a little more heavily on the palate. So next time you sip into a snappy lager, thank the adjuncts!
But adjuncts don’t just lighten the color and body, do they? Absolutely not! One of the most ‘adjuncty’ beers you can find out there is a Sweet Stout/Dessert Stout/Pastry Stout. These styles are filled to the brim with oats that behave in the exact opposite way to corn or rice. While oats won’t add any color to the beer, they will add a rich and filling body with a sweetness that lingers long after each sip. They aid in the smoothness and creaminess of a beer while also adding a touch of nutty flavor that works wonderfully in darker beers.
Honey can add color (this depends heavily on the type and source of the honey that is being used) and a fairly strong flavor, but honey is mostly used for greatly increasing the sugar content and thus the ABV of the final beer. It’s the same reason why certain types of meads and wines are so biting on the palate - juice and honey are mainly just simple sugars that get readily turned into alcohol during fermentation. No residual sugar and no protein makes for a very very dry drink.
These are just the most common of the adjuncts you’ll likely come across on your journey through the beer world. Next time you order a beer, see if you can tell if there are adjuncts in it and maybe even try to guess what kind!
What do you mean by “Hoppy?”
Oftentimes I see people shy away from trying any beer that’s been called “hoppy”. But what do you mean by hoppy? For most, it seems to be a short hand for bitter, but for brewers “hoppy” is one of the primary and necessary elements of beer.
You might be surprised to learn that more than IPAs can be hoppy. Pilsners are actually one of the hoppiest beers around both in terms of relative bitterness and hop flavor. Pilsner hop flavor is often expressed as spicy, floral, and herbal (these are Noble hop characteristics, but that’s for a later talk), a marked difference from the citrus and pine of IPAs. Don’t let the name scare you, but an English Bitter is barely more bitter than a cup of tea. The English hop flavors are generally berry, woody, and earthy. Hazy IPAs, on the other hand, have incredible hop flavor with relatively low bitterness. These flavors are largely tropical, juicy, and sweet. Every beer has hop flavor even if you don’t realize it. What’s most important is finding the style that fits your preference.
So if you’re hesitant to try a beer because it’s “hoppy” take a moment to determine is it truly hop flavor you don’t like or just bitterness. Hop flavor is present in every beer from light to dark, heavy to sessionable, and macro to craft. It shows itself in many different ways, but they are all “hoppy”. Tell our expert beertenders what kind of flavor you enjoy (fruity, piney, herbal, juicy, etc.) and they’ll be happy to guide you to your new favorite beer!
Collabfest 2025!
Bringing together breweries, inventive beers and Colorado community…
If you are a Colorado resident, or someone who’s willing to travel interstate for a beer festival, I highly suggest making the trek to Colorado’s Collabfest. As you could probably guess, Collabfest is a whole beer festival dedicated to collaborations between two or more breweries. It’s put on by the Colorado Brewer’s Guild (CBG) and serves as a fundraiser for the Guild. It also features some of the weirdest, silliest, and most questionable experiments in beer that you’ve never drunk before (and maybe won’t ever want to drink again). Spanish Cedar IPAs, Pilsners with a West African grain that tastes like Sauvignon Blanc, and even an homage to Goldschlager–and those are just the collabs that Mountain Toad is a part of!
This festival isn’t just beer, it’s a festival about the stories, experiences, and commentaries (the intangible ingredients) that the brewers bring to the beer. As a brewer, I can say that this beer festival is absolutely my favorite both to attend and to pour for this very reason. The beers are delicious and the really great ones get you talking about what actually makes a beer a beer. Can you make a beer with pork shoulder or Nashville hot chicken? Can AI make a good beer recipe (the answer is a resounding “NO” by all accounts)? Does the story behind the beer make it taste any different? Brewers at this festival are just as excited to tell you about their beer as you probably are to drink it, which isn’t true for your typical beer fest.
Everyone at the CBG does a wonderful job setting up and running this event and it is ALWAYS a blast. My personal favorite beers to try are ones that showcase new ingredients, new processes, or historic beers that you don’t see anywhere. I am incredibly excited to go and I am incredibly excited for you, dear reader, to join us! Tickets go pretty fast so get them while you can! Collabfest is April 19th at the Westin in Westminster!
This Tastes Like a Barn!
Allow me to set a scene. It’s the mid 19th century and the sun is falling fast over the Wallonian farmland. Your breakfast is wearing off, but there’s still work left to do. You need a break - something to help you recover so you can finish your day. You grab your cup, head to the barn, and pour yourself some crisp, bitter beer. Time to find a shady tree and recuperate before the day ends so you can move onto something a little stronger once the work is truly done.
What beer were you just thinking about? For us modern American beer drinkers, we were probably thinking about a crisp, ice cold light lager - bland and bubbly. But for our imaginary Belgian farmhand, that beer was almost certainly a saison (Anglicized as a farmhouse ale). Historically saisons were lower in alcohol than some modern variants, but it still has its light body, funky flavors, and bitter, peppery finish. Great for an afternoon break. Stronger saisons were usually left for the evening when you weren’t expected to be a competent farmhand.
“What is a saison?” is a pretty common question we get at Mountain Toad. And frankly, there is no clear answer - saisons can vary from pale straw to black in color, 3.5% to 9+% ABV, and feature every flavor from earthy to hay and strawberry to horse blanket. Historically, saisons would be fermented with whatever yeast and bacteria was floating around your barn or home, which unsurprisingly lead to each saison’s flavors being entirely unique to the farm where it was brewed.
Compared to other styles, the saison cannot be easily pinned down. It changes with the seasons and it changes with the terroir. The only way to know if you’ll like it is to try it!
What’s in a stout?
Ahh February, the most difficult month to spell. Love is in the air, golden retrievers will soon be descending upon Golden en masse, and barrels upon barrels of stout will be filling the taprooms. What’s that? You didn’t know? Yes! February is Stout Month in Colorado which means we’ll be exploring the dark and brooding world of stouts and why they're special.
First off, what even is a stout? Well believe it or not, stouts actually started as porters. You had your porters, a dark beer popular with the English working class (specifically those who worked at ports - hence the name). Eventually some brewers decided to make something a little stronger (a little more stout one could say) and along came stout porters. Stout porters were essentially porters with a higher ABV which is one reason why there is debate, even today, on whether or not stouts and porters are the same thing. In my opinion, the two have become pretty drastically different over time. Aside from the difference in ABV, the two styles have developed distinct flavor profiles, though with an admittedly large amount of overlap between them. Stouts are typically roastier with a dryness that accentuates their bitterness. Whereas porters are often smoother, choosing to showcase the sweeter, maltier flavors of dark malt. Many commercial porter examples feature an addition of vanilla bean to compliment that sweetness. But there are also oatmeal stouts and sweet stouts that opt for the smoother creamy textures similar to what you’d expect of a porter. Like I said, there’s a large amount of overlap and I can really only speak on American stouts and porters. I am not an expert on their English and Irish ancestors.
The most recognizable feature of these beers is, of course, their color. Ranging from a deep brown to an almost inky black that could swallow light like a black hole. Fun fact, the world’s most famous Irish stout (you know the one) is not actually black or brown but a “dark ruby red” according to their brewers. And if you hold a light up to many dark beers you will see these brilliant garnet highlights along the sides of the glass, try it next time you drink a stout! Those ruby highlights, aside from being really cool looking, are actually indicative of what makes the stout so special: roasted malt. It all started with Daniel Wheeler and his invention of drum roasted malt in 1818. Before the drum roaster, malt was dried on a flat grate over a direct fire which gave it a harsh, smoky flavor and uneven coloring with some barley kernels being burnt to a crisp while others remained relatively green. The drum roaster gave maltsters more control over the uniformity and quality of their malt which, in turn, gave brewers more control over their beers. Beer color and flavor were no longer dependent on the whims of the maltster, but could now be consistently controlled to create dark beers without it tasting like char and ash. Roasted black malt is essential to some of my favorite styles, but a little goes a long way. It often makes up only a small percentage (less than 10% typically) of the total amount of grain in a batch of beer - just enough to provide color and a little roasty flavor. Too much more than 10% and you might as well be eating charcoal.
Stouts, as I’m sure you are aware, can vary wildly from incredibly sweet, chocolate syrup pastry stouts to might-as-well-be-eating-coffee-grounds levels of roast and bitterness. Both have their time and place and all of them will be celebrated this coming month! Mountain Toad has a few weird ones coming out I think: an imperial stout (seems pretty normal), a beet stout (beets?), a Belgian stout (I don’t even know what that means), and a Golden stout that takes everything I just wrote about and throws it out the window. Well, that’s craft beer for ya.
Cheers,
Vinny the head brewer