Blending

Magnanimous Brewing in Tampa has built a strong local following for its big-flavored beers, including its barrel-aged imperial stouts. Here, founder and brewer Mike Lukacina shares some thoughts behind their ever-evolving base stout meant for aging in whiskey casks.

The world’s best oak-aged beers begin with careful hot-side considerations. Here’s how some of today’s leading brewers design stouts and barleywines to maximize success inside the barrel, and beyond.

Give those barrels plenty of time before tasting, says New Image founder Brandon Capps, and be open to new possibilities when tasting different components for blending.

When it’s time to pull nails and evaluate components for blending, New Image’s Brandon Capps recommends including tasters who are less familiar with the style, while also ensuring that tasting happens blindly and individually.

Known for juicy IPAs dripping with hop character, Hop Butcher for the World cofounders and brewers Jeremiah Zimmer and Jude La Rose share what they’ve learned about choosing, blending, and employing hops for punchy and alluring aroma and flavor.

Cam Lund, cofounder and brewer at Bluewood Brewing in St. Louis, outlines their multi-threaded approach to brewing, aging, and blending their big barrel-aged stouts—including a few that reach liqueur-like heights of 20 percent ABV or more.

Michael Kane, founder of Kane Brewing, explains their patient and intentional approach to barrel-aging imperial stouts, including the award-winning A Night to End All Dawns—from selecting barrels to tasting and finishing.

The brewmaster of Firestone Walker in Paso Robles, California, lays out the brewery’s methodical approach to blending hops for elevated flavors and aromas in distinctive IPAs.

In Longmont, Colorado, this small passion project devoted solely to spontaneously fermented beers trusts in data and science to better understand and guide their fermentation, aging, and blending.

Getting beer out of the barrels and processing it into brite tanks involves constant monitoring and multiple lab tests at Firestone Walker—and maybe just a bit of tasting and celebration, as Eric Ponce explains.

In moderation, oxidative flavors can add welcome depth to barrel-aged barleywines and other strong ales. One way to get there, explains Firestone Walker’s Eric Ponce, is via careful blending of younger and older beers.

It begins with a recipe designed for barrel-aging, and sourcing the best and freshest barrels possible. It continues with an understanding of how storage temperature affects flavor extraction. Firestone Walker’s Eric Ponce explains.

From idea to grain to glass, Firestone Walker’s Eric Ponce underscores the creative potential of barrel-aging and blending by walking us through the development of Mezca-Limón, a strong ale inspired by mezcalita cocktails.

In this video course, Firestone Walker’s Eric Ponce shares advice and lays out the careful process behind the brewery’s barrel-aged and blended blockbusters such as Parabola and Anniversary Ale.

Cofounder Kenneth Trease, head brewer Phil Pesheck, and brewer Julia Astrid Davis of Seattle’s Burke-Gilman discuss their calculated approach to hoppy beers, and how they extend their welcome by brewing and embracing diverse styles.

Our hop choices as brewers aren't limited to single varietals. Those who know hops best are mixing and matching them to make useful blends. Here are some options worth trying on brew day.

Informed by the Belgian tradition but rooted in their own places, here are five beers brewed and blended in the manner of lambic and gueuze.

Kevin Foster, based in Atlanta, Georgia, won a gold medal for his gueuze-style blend at the American Homebrewers Association Nationals in 2018. Here, he talks about his year-to-year process for brewing, aging, and blending wild beers.

Try to brew it if you want—many have tried—but few beers belong to their own place more than traditional Belgian gueuze.

Joe Stange, managing editor of Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine® and co-author of Good Beer Guide Belgium, explores how that country’s wilder-side beers have continued to evolve.