Bourbon Barrel Guten Bock | Bock
A traditional dark German lager reflecting the long history of bocks. Clean and solid malt backbone allows the flavors of the chocolate and rye malts to come through strong and distinct. Hints of dried fruits and raisins come in at the end with aromas of dark fruit and rye bread. A true-to-style bock, clean and distinct.
ABV: 6.3% | IBU: 26
Malt: Munich, Melanoidin, Malted Rye, Chocolate Wheat
Hops: Hallertau
Charlie Hoxmeier | Head Brewer
"Bock beers have been brewed for a long time. There’s a huge history of Bocks, both in America and in Germany where the style originated. A lot of history, a lot of versions of Bocks. My goal for the beer is to reflect this history, and to make a very traditional, true-to-style bock. This tends to have a strong malty profile to it, some hints of dried fruits and raisins that come in at the end. The focus for this beer is the malt, definitely. And being a lager, it should have a very clean flavor that’s rounded out by its maltiness.
It needed to be a cleaner beer, so all of the aspects of the different malts shine through in their own way. We use rye, again, in this beer. But the Munich malt and the Melanoidin malt are things that have strong malt flavors, very distinct malt flavors. And a clean fermentation doesn’t contribute any flavors from the yeast itself. So the yeast itself is very neutral, and that allows the flavors of the malts and the hops to come through very strongly and very distinctly, which is what we want in this beer. Also, because it’s so clean, and because it has a solid malt backbone, it’s well suited for barrel aging - which we plan to do a lot of with this beer. It does very well in bourbon barrels and other kinds of oak. These barrels highlight and smooth out some of those flavors once it goes into oak."