page_title: Barrel-aged beer
section_title: Wood ageing
hierarchical_section_title: Barrel-aged beer / Wood ageing
caption_attribution_description: English: It works for me.
context_page_description: A barrel-aged beer is a beer that has been aged for a period of time in a wooden barrel. Typically, these barrels once housed bourbon, whisky, wine, or, to a lesser extent, brandy, sherry, or port. There is a particular tradition of barrel ageing beer in Belgium, notably of lambic beers. The first bourbon barrel-aged beers were produced in the United States in the early 1990s.
  Beers can be aged in barrels to achieve a variety of effects, such as imparting flavours from the wood or from the previous contents of the barrels, or causing a Brettanomyces fermentation. Oak remains the wood of choice, but other woods are in use as well. Chestnut, ash, poplar, cedar, acacia, cypress, redwood, pine, and even eucalyptus have been used for barrel-ageing with varying success.
  The flavours imparted by oak barrels differ widely depending on the oak species, the growing area, and how the wood has been treated. New oak barrels can be used for ageing beer, but they are not common due to high costs. Some flavours that new oak will contribute are wood, vanilla, dill, spice, and toastiness.
context_section_description: Wood-ageing is a more manageable option than barrel-ageing for home brewers. They sometimes add cubes, chips or spirals of wood directly into their beers to add bitterness and character. These products are also useful to commercial brewers desiring new wood flavours, and their beers are often labelled as "oak-aged." An example is Great Divide's Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout, which is aged on a blend of French and toasted oak chips. Anheuser-Busch's flagship brand Budweiser is aged on American beechwood spirals which promote fermentation and speed up the ageing process.
  In 2017 Innis & Gunn decided that barrel ageing did not need to take place in a barrel and could be done in as little as five days. They attempted to redefine the term to include a forced, wood flavouring process that only they use and that the rest of the industry does not recognise as barrel-ageing. A backlash from other brewers using the term in its traditionally understood sense ensued and the outcome is, to date, unresolved.
  The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) has a category for wood-aged beer, which states:
  This style is intended for beer aged in wood without added alcohol character from previous use of the barrel. Bourbon-barrel or other similar beers should be entered as a Specialty Wood-Aged Beer.
caption: Innis & Gunn's oak-aged beers are an export success for the Scottish brewery[35]
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