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Fortified Beer?

Anyone done a sweet fortified barley wine?

I'm thinking a high SG red beer, lightly fermented then hit with a heap of neutral (finish at 18%) to halt fermentation and create some sweet, syrupy, malty goodness for sipping.

Comments

  • That's what I thought but there must be a reason why I can't find any :-?

  • Most likely taxation, can you imagine taxing it as a distilled spirit?

    Or, hooliganism. :)

  • a LOT of barrel aged beers are 'unintentionally fortified', and I heard a story that one brewery in Athens, GA, that left evidence of 'intentionally fortifying a barrel with a store bought bottle of that same whiskey that the barrel originally housed', and the TTB official saw it, and made them dump all the barrels down the drain, on the spot... a legal distillery could do this, but like said before, the taxes would be huge... I expect it to be a thing when distilleries grow a bit more...

  • I do not think it would be considred a spirit. Forified wines are not.

    I think you do not see fortified beers becsuse you can reach high enough alcohol strength with fermentation alone.

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • Commercially, it might or might not be a thing for the future, nevertheless a good thought to try on hobby level.

  • I once brewed a fairly big foreign extra stout. bottled half as it was but added some neutral that had been soaking in bourbon chips for a while to the other half. Ended up a tasty drop with a decent kick, think it was about 18% ;)

  • In AU it would be taxed at the same rate as whisky which is $81.21 per LAL if it comes from anything other than a grape source.
    Foritified wines are treated differently here due to the Wine Equalisation Tax scheme.

  • I don't have any experience in fortified beers, but I once accidentally freeze distilled a 10% barley wine that had lots of centennial chinook and columbus. Dropped the beer into a corny when it was done and one evening decided I'd like to enjoy a glass of it so put the corny into the freezer in the garage to chill it down nice and fast. I must have gotten distracted by something because I forgot it was there... I REALLY forgot it was there .... For like 2-3 weeks....

    Had a panic moment when I finally realised what I'd done, so I pulled the keg out of the freezer and opened the lid. It looked a lot like a slush puppy and I got a great idea!!

    I bottled it from keg leaving all the ice behind and it was sweet, strong and super delicious drank in small quantities.

    I let the ice melt and measured how much was there, that number along with how much I had bottled and the SG numbers for the bottled beer and the water left behind I guesstimated that it was in the 19-21% region.

    One day il do it again on purpose

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