The Horus Guide to Blending and Flavoring Big Barrel-Aged Beers

Based in Oceanside, California, Horus Aged Ales is a blendery focused especially on ponderous barrel-aged barleywines and stouts that tend to be highly sought-after by enthusiasts. Founder Kyle Harrop produces the beer at a nearby brewery, then he ages, blends, and often flavors the components with ingredients such as coconut, coffee, nuts, or vanilla, among others.

In the 55-minute video course, Harrop shares his approach to developing and brewing those different threads, to aging and blending, and to how he carefully selects and adds those various flavor adjuncts to create a luxe, finished beer that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Among the topics he covers:

• how he builds a recipe around a particular barrel
• brewing for high viscosity ahead of extended aging
• adjusting recipes for beers that will spend time in two or more barrels
• brewing CrystAle, an all–crystal malt barleywine
• target finishing gravities for barrel-aged stouts
• the challenge of managing high-gravity fermentations
• his preferred types and ages of bourbon barrels
• how pasteurization can improve the flavor of big barrel-aged beers
• deciding whether to double-, triple-, or even quadruple- or quintuple-barrel a beer based on its flavor coming out of the previous barrel
• keeping notes and allowing his palate to guide him on when the beer is ready
• working with various coffees while not being a coffee drinker
• adding different types of coconut, and accepting the occasional “floatie”
• the challenges and rewards of working with hazelnuts
• using vanillas from a wide range of places
• experimenting (and often failing) with other flavor adjuncts

And more.