[THC] Monkey Heaven Rye Barrel Porter

[L. A. Swihart]

Last night I got home from my excellent adventure in time to go to 
Drinking Liberally (during the past four weeks I saw Jason and Adriane 
and their new baby boy Rowan, spent two weeks on a sheep dairy farm, 
went to Boston,judged at the 12th annual B.E.E.R homebrew competition on 
Long Island, among other things).

Sean (and Rick?) put the half-barrel into the chest freezerator, and 
today I decided to transfer some into a 2L bottle and take it with us to 
the Boneyard competition to taste.

I haven't tasted it yet, but I'm pretty sure I smell some Brett.  I am 
developing a taste for it, and of course barrels and Bret and sour and 
wild beers have become tres chic in the past couple of years.

We'll taste this tonight at Joel Plutchak's house where the "judge 
reception" (code language for backyard barbecue with lots of kegs of 
homebrew) is always the happening thing the night before the day of the 
competition.  We'll spend the night at Joel's, as will one or two other 
out-of-town judges.  Slumber Party!

More later,
Linda
PS Monkey Heaven Rye Barrel Porter, for the newer members, was a 53+ 
gallon batch brewed in Spring of 2007, recipe by Robert White, seven 
different brewers I believe, and after secondarying put into a Heaven 
Hill Rye Whiskey barrel for about 8 weeks and then spit up into kegs 
that went home with the brewers who made it.  We all contributed some to 
this half-barrel which has been sitting in my basement since.....well 
not quite a year ago.  (Which belongs to Jerome, by the way, and the tap 
belongs to Sean).  As usual my recordkeeping leaves a bit to be 
desired.  We transferred it into the rye barrel  on May 8, and I seem to 
recall that it was right around eight weeks when tasting it seemed to 
indicate that it should come out.  Probably it could have stayed longer, 
but we were warned against leaving it in too long, getting too strong of 
a whiskey flavor....

Lloyd has the other barrel that Jerome lent us, and Jerome's tap (right 
Lloyd?) and there's stout in it that spent time in a Maker's Mark barrel 
just a bit later in the summer.