"Barrel Aged:" A Night Of Great Beer, Film And People

By Ben Kramer in Food on Dec 15, 2014 8:45PM

Via Matt Conzen

Beer has a wonderful way of bringing people together. Young and old, facial haired and non-facial haired, it has a way of putting complete strangers in the same room. “Barrel Aged,” the film and tasting event, did just that during as Saturday afternoon became Saturday evening.

People flocked to Logan square Auditorium Saturday for two reasons: to sample beers from various breweries such as Goose Island, Moody Tongue and Rude Hippo, and to watch BeerFx’s latest documentary “Barrel Aged.”

Doors opened two hours before the film's 5:30 p.m. screening which allowed guest to walk around and sample the beers available. Big Dicks Brewing booth was a popular destination, along with Red Gate Brewing Co. and Rude Hippo, who had a supreme and sour Berliner Weisse entitled “Berliner Weisse.”

Goose Island tried to play incognito with a booth set up in the back corner, serving Bourbon County Stout and “Extremely Naughty Goose,” an imperial brown ale aged in Woodford Reserve barrels. It's fitting that Goose would have bourbon barrel beers because it followed with the theme of BeerFx’s short film “Barrel Aged.”

The picture focused on eight independent brewers joining forces to create an imperial brown ale, which was aged in a Angel’s Envy barrel for 10 months and named “Turn Brown For What!” Documenting the beers creation, the film also touched on subjects such as Chicago’s growing home brewing scene and a little on the brewers themselves.

A fine documentary, it was made even better by the audible love coming from the audience. Anytime a brewer was shown on screen, whether it be from Inebriated Brewing or Red Gate Brewing Co. the audience would roar with approval, which added to the event's already jolly mood.

“Turn Brown For What!” was served moments before the film's screening. The beer itself was mellow, chock full of wood character in both taste and aroma. The recipe was made available to the public, with the malts, hops, yeast and boil time printed out on a small flyer. Seeing the flyer helped give a better sense as to what you were drinking and also gave anyone the chance to recreate the beer. Bourbon barrels were not made available to the public unfortunately.

All in all, the event was a nice way to educate on the process of barrel aging beer and to show off little breweries and brewers that people in Chicago may have never known of before. Everyone’s had or heard of Revolution, but what about Powell Brew House?

Fine beer and fine people, “Barrel Aged” proved to be like the beer it followed— a success.