SF Beer Week 2016: It Came from the Wood Barrel Aged Beer Fest
On the second Friday night of 2016 San Francisco Beer Week, The Jug Shop held its sixth annual “It Came From the Wood: Barrel Aged Beer Fest” where attendees of this sold out event enjoyed pours of over 100 different barrel aged bottles from the Jug Shop’s cellars. By 8pm, roughly 150 people were snaked around the building braving the light rain to attend one of the highlights of beer week.
Once the doors opened, the crowd immediately formed into two barrel aged cliques: sour heads and imperials stouters.
Sour fans darted to the back bar where event organizer and Jug Shop beer head Evan Cripe was speed-pouring multiple selections from Cantillon (Fou Foune, Classic Geuze, Saint Gilloise, Iris), Goose Island sister series (Gillian, Halia, Juliet and Lolita), Drie Fontienen (Intense Red, Gueze Golden Blend), and many others.
Most imperial stout devotees bee-lined for the front bar to sample eleven different bottles from the Fifty Fifty Eclipse series including some vintages bottles such as the 2012 Old Fitzgerald. Once these kicked, there were plenty of other outstanding high octane choices such as Le Trou Du Diable L’Imperatrice, Crux Tough Love, Prarie Vanilla Noir and Coffee Okie, Anchorage Darkest Hour, To Ol Sort Maelk, and five Struise Black Damnations .
Perhaps the most coveted offering was the Bourbon County Stout Rare aged in 35-year-old Heaven Hill barrels. Most patrons who were coveting this brew were able to get multiple pours of it. Given that it retails for $60-$70 per bottle (and that’s assuming you could get your hands on one) access to this bottle itself almost covered the cost of admission.
By 10:30, about half of the crowd head had dispersed or headed to the parking lot to enjoy beer-braised BBQ pork sandwiches from Belcampo to discuss future bottle shares to tide them over until the next Jug Shop barrel aged event which, given the continued popularly of this event, may hopefully occur before next year’s beer week.
