You purchase a bottle of English barleywine that has just been released and weighs in at a hefty 13 percent ABV. It’s a cellar no-brainer, right? A beer this young is bound to have a scorching-hot booziness and will certainly need some time to mellow out.
Well, not so fast. This bruisin’ beauty just happens to have been aged in bourbon barrels, and a little research reveals that it spent nine long months slumbering in that oak. Still want to put it down in the cellar?
Maybe yes and maybe no, but either way, it should certainly cause you to pause and evaluate the beer in a completely different light than if it had gone straight from the stainless fermentor into the bottle.