As Funky Buddha has grown so has its barrel-aging program. Its current barrel cellar consists of over 500 oak casks of all types. On the floor right now are hundreds of Bourbon barrels filled with everything from imperial stout to double brown ales; saisons aging in Chardonnay casks; and a multitude of unique wine and spirits casks including rum, tequila, and even luscious Cabernet. Each beer is sampled regularly to examine how the beer has matured and picked up characteristic of the barrel, which can lend everything from boozy complexity to subtle hints of spice and vanilla.
From this expanded program comes The Living Barrel Series, Funky Buddha’s latest line of specialty beers with a new, enlightened look.
In upcoming months and moving into 2018, beers in The Living Barrel series will be released in 22 ounce bottles through the Funky Buddha taproom with some of the beers going into distribution throughout Florida as well.
The first two releases, as seen above, will come out between end of July and late August. These include Rum Barrel-Aged Pina Colada, an imperial cream ale made with real pineapple and coconut and aged in Jamaican rum casks for months; and Vanilla Bourbon Barrel-aged Nikolai Vorlauf, its Imperial Russian Stout aged for nearly two years in Bourbon barrels with whole vanilla beans added to the barrel.
Barrel-aging beer experiments: What flavors can you expect from each barrel type?
The third announced release, Bourbon Barrel-Aged Dread Pirate Roberts (imperial stout with raspberries, chocolate, and coconut), will be released exclusively to our Imperial Club members in August, with any remaining bottles released to the general public thereafter.
Future releases include the 2017 iterations of Morning Wood and Last Buffalo in the Park, plus a host of other surprises to come.
