Jester King Acquire Wine Barrels from Dry Comal Creek Winery
Wow.
Jester King has acquired Cabernet Sauvignon wine barrels from Dry Comal Creek Winery.
From the horse’s mouth:
We headed out to the Hill Country this morning to pick up some wine barrels and came home with fourteen Cabernet Sauvignon barrels that had been recently drained of about sixty gallons of wine each. The barrels are mostly French oak, but there were a few American oak barrels in the mix too.
This is great news. Once they hit production later this summer/fall Jester King will join ranks with Real Ale in being one of the few TX breweries aging in wine barrels.
Jeff, Mike, and Joe have experimented with pinot additions to great success, in my opinion, with the Impaler Vlad. When I had this belgian with blood oranges added in the whirlpool, the wine characteristics came from pinot additions, not barrels. I can only imagine how it may come out with aging in barrels. Although rumors from the camp have hinted that all bets are off on what the boys will be brewing and releasing come later 2010. And with the evidence of strains of Brettanomyces inoculating the barrels already the guys already have some cool ideas cooking.
More from the horse:
We were definitely very excited to purchase our first batch of wine barrels. We’ve actually decided to make the first commercial beer we brew one that will be aged in the Cabernet Sauvignon barrels with wild yeast and bacteria. Our motivation for this is partially because we’re really excited to brew an oak aged wild beer and partially because we don’t know what the #%@ our brewhouse efficiency is going to be on our first commercial batch. We figure that if we way overshoot our projected starting gravity the superattenuative wild yeast and bacteria will bail us out so we’re not left with some cloying residual sugar bomb.
Woo hoo!
