---
title: "5 tips for properly aging beers in barrels"
description: "Andy Parker, head brewer and manager of the barrel program at Avery Brewing Co. (Boulder, Colorado), provides 5 tips on how to properly age beers in barrels."
url: https://www.thebeertimes.com/en/5-tips-for-properly-aging-beers-in-barrels/
date: 2023-03-24
modified: 2026-06-12
author: "Carlos Uhart M."
image: https://www.thebeertimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Barriles-de-cerveza-Portada.jpg
categories: ["Culture"]
tags: ["Cultura", "Ingredientes"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# 5 tips for properly aging beers in barrels

Andy Parker, head brewer and manager of the barrel program at Avery Brewing Co. (Boulder, Colorado), provides 5 tips on how to properly age beers in wooden barrels.

!(https://www.thebeertimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Barriles-de-cerveza-Portada.jpg)*Aging beers in barrels*

More time in the barrel does not necessarily produce a better beer. Even with our 15-16% ABV barrel-aged Stouts, we get all the barrel flavor in the first two months.

## 1. Avoid unnecessarily long aging

Around four months, the flavors are still vibrant, but if we wait much longer, oxidation will begin to increase and the flavors will start to mellow.

At some point around twelve months, we will start to see more porous barrels that oxidize heavily, and we need to pull them.

I prefer to take the beer out when it is at its peak of aromas and flavors. It can always continue to age in the bottle if the consumer wishes.

## 2. Treat the barrel as if it were an ingredient

The barrel will be an important component of the finished beer’s aromas and flavors, so think of it as just another ingredient in the same category as malt or yeast.

I rarely come up with a recipe and then start looking for specific barrels for it. Usually, I get great barrels first and then come up with a malt bill to complement them.

When we acquired some very nice Madeira barrels, we didn’t think of a Pale beer or a Stout. It was an easy choice to accentuate the rich caramel and Madeira aromas and flavors with a grain bill rich in caramel malt. The resulting sour beer even resembles Madeira.

## 3. You will occasionally fail

Don’t be afraid to dump a batch of beer. Putting beer in a barrel means you are embracing a significant chaos factor.

You are no longer in a sanitized environment, so your beer could be exposed to wild yeasts and bacteria from the environment.

Sometimes the beer won’t turn out as you expected, and that’s fine; dump it and start over. These mistakes will help you figure out how to improve next time. All good brewers dump beer from time to time.

## 4. Use staves and oak chips

Staves and oak chips are your friends. A single barrel turn will extract almost all the flavor of the spirit that was in it, and with each successive turn, it will lose more oak tannins.

If you want more oak flavor in subsequent batches, don’t be afraid to try oak chips, as they are available in different toasts and flavors, so you can experiment with them without issue.

And because of the larger surface area they provide, you won’t take long to get the flavor you’re looking for.

## 5. Let your taste buds decide

When the beer tastes incredible to you, pull it! I am often asked how I know when a barrel project is truly finished, and my answer is when I think it tastes incredible.

Don’t worry about leaving it in the barrel for a few more months if it tastes good and you hope to be a little more amazed. But if it’s incredible, it will most likely only decline rather than improve. Take it out of the barrel and enjoy it.

## Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

### 1. What is the chaos factor in barrel aging, and how does it affect beer sanitation?

The chaos factor refers to the impossibility of maintaining absolute microbiological control inside a wooden container. Unlike stainless steel tanks, wood is a porous material that harbors microclimates and imperfections where wild yeasts like Brettanomyces and bacteria like Lactobacillus reside. These microorganisms are impossible to eradicate with common sanitizers, meaning the brewer must accept that the beer will interact with the barrel’s internal biology, potentially transforming the batch in unforeseen ways.

### 2. Why does a wooden barrel lose its ability to impart flavor after the first use?

Oak wood acts like a sponge, retaining the aromatic compounds of the previous distillate, such as whiskey or sherry, along with the natural tannins of the tree itself. During the first two months of contact with the beer, the liquid extracts the vast majority of these soluble surface elements through an infusion process. In subsequent uses, the wood becomes technically neutral, forcing the brewer to resort to external additions like toasted oak chips or staves to reinject the lost woody character.

### 3. What is the physical risk of keeping a beer in a barrel for more than twelve months?

The main danger of excessively prolonged aging is drastic oxidation caused by natural evaporation and wood porosity. Over time, the water and alcohol in the beer evaporate microscopically through the staves, a phenomenon known as the angels’ share, which creates an empty space with air inside the barrel. If the beer remains there too long, the oxygen alters fatty acids and hop compounds, developing unpleasant flavors reminiscent of wet cardboard or newspaper.

### 4. How does the grain bill influence when designing a beer recipe intended for Madeira barrels?

Designing a beer for fortified wine barrels like Madeira requires adapting the malt bill to act as a mirror of the barrel’s flavors. Madeira barrels contribute intense notes of dried fruits, vinous acidity, and burnt sugars. By configuring a grain bill rich in high-degree caramel malts, the brewer generates unfermentable complex sugars that resist yeast attenuation, achieving that the final beer’s body symbiotically emulates the characteristic density and sweetness of the original wine.

### 5. What technical advantage do oak chips offer compared to using a conventional barrel?

Oak chips offer a radical optimization of extraction time thanks to the ratio between their surface area and the liquid volume. Being finely chopped, a greater amount of wood comes into direct contact with the beer simultaneously compared to the static walls of a barrel. This accelerates the transfer of vanillin, oak lactones, and tannins, allowing the desired woody profile to be obtained in a matter of days or weeks, in addition to offering exact control over the chosen commercial toast level.

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