Kentucky Barrel Ale set to make its Irish debut at craft beer festival
Popular in the US for the past 12 years, the beer is produced by Alltech Lexington Brewing and Distilling Co. The Kentucky-based bourbon producer also recently announced plans to produce a new Irish whiskey brand in partnership with Carlow Brewing Company, which is owned by the O’Hara family and best known as the producers of O’Hara stout.
Seamus O’Hara attended the recent informal Irish launch of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale in Caffrey’s of Batterstown. The formal Irish launch takes place today in the RDS, with the festival continuing until Sunday.
Primarily a global leader in animal health and nutrition, Alltech has extensive Irish links. Irish-born founder and president Pearse Lyons chose Dunboyne, Co Meath, as the location for Alltech’s European Bioscience Centre.
Dr Lyons said: “The success of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale took us all by surprise. We began with just five barrels six years ago and now there are 5,000 barrels ageing at any one time.
“With the Irish Government’s 2013 initiative, The Gathering, we decided that the time was right to bring an Irish-Kentucky product back home. This led to our partnership with Carlow Brewing Company, who will act as our beer importer in Ireland. They were an obvious choice, being the number one craft beer producer in the country and having effectively recreated the craft beer industry in Ireland.”
Alltech diversified into brewing 12 years ago with the acquisition of the Lexington Brewery in Kentucky. Five years later, Dr Lyons drew on his family history, with five generations of coopers, his experience as one of the chief process engineers at Irish Distillers, and his master’s in brewing and distilling to create a truly original beer — Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale.
Now, for the first time, this beer is available in Ireland at the Irish Craft Beer Festival and in distinguished bars in Dublin and Meath. The ale is already a favourite among Kentuckians and has seen increasing sales in the North America and most recently China.
Alltech&’s national sales manager, Matt Cordle, said: “Our beers are really taking flight and gaining momentum. We have now expanded our warehouse capacity five times, with over 1,000 barrels a week coming to meet the high demand.”
At any one time in the state of Kentucky — ‘Bourbon Country’ — there are 1m barrels of bourbon laid down in fresh, new oak casks and 4.8m barrels residing in the Bluegrass State, easily outstripping the population of 4.2m people.
Each batch of bourbon must be aged in new, charred-oak barrels.
Alltech avails of freshly decanted bourbon barrels from its partners on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Kentucky Ale is added to the barrels and left to mature.
During the six-week, temperature-controlled maturation process, the ale marries with the rich flavours and aromas from within the bourbon cask, culminating in a uniquely crafted ale.
During the 18th North American Brewers’ Association Mountain Brewers Beer Fest in Idaho in July, the Alltech ale was awarded the gold medal for barrel-aged beer. The ale took home the silver medal at the 20th Australian International Beer Awards in May.
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