Virtually nothing about Blind Enthusiasm’s Barrel Fest has come about quickly — not the planning for the event, nor the beers it will showcase — but like most worthwhile undertakings, the wait is sure to be worth it.
The Sept. 23 festival will be unlike any beer event ever hosted in Edmonton, featuring complex barrel-aged and barrel-fermented beers from 14 of the most noted breweries (and one cidery) from Alberta and across Canada.
“The idea has been percolating for years,” says Greg Zeschuk, founder of Edmonton’s Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company and the driving force behind the festival.
Like a lot of things, Zeschuk’s plan to hold a festival dedicated to beers aged in wood was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But when it comes to beer, Zeschuk possesses a seemingly boundless supply of patience: one of Blind Enthusiasm’s specialties is barrel-aged and barrel-fermented beers that can take years before they’re ready. So dedicated is Zeschuk to the craft that he built a bespoke, three-storey brewery — called The Monolith — for brewing, aging and blending barrel-fermented beers. The Monolith’s first release in 2019 came nearly five years after the start of the project.
In the time since, craft beer in Alberta more widely has grown in leaps and bounds. Dozens of breweries have sprung up across the province — and beer drinkers have largely followed them into more adventurous territory, embracing IPAs, hazy styles and sours.
Zeschuk believes the audience has grown in size and sophistication to support a festival dedicated to wood-aged beers. And all the breweries on the festival roster have a decorated track record with barrel beers to justify an invitation, including Blindman Brewing in Lacombe (reigning Brewery of the Year at the 2022 Alberta Beer Awards), The Establishment Brewing Company and Cabin Brewing in Calgary, as well as Trial and Ale Brewing here in Edmonton, which, like The Monolith, specializes in barrel-fermented beers.
“It has to be part of your production. You can’t just dabble,” says Zeschuk. “We want to celebrate these kinds of beers. We’re also trying to educate people about these kinds of beers.”
As part of that education piece, Zeschuk stipulated that all the participating breweries must send one of their brewers, so that there’s someone who can speak knowledgeably to festival-goers about what they’re drinking.
“If people want to ask questions, if they want to have a sidebar, this is an opportunity,” he says.
With attendance capped at a little over 300, this is a festival geared toward appreciation, contemplation and conversation — a slower, more deliberate process, like the one that went into making the beers on offer. (Considering many barrel-aged and barrel-fermented beers are also higher in alcohol content, it’s also a wise approach to the day.)
The festival site at Ritchie Park will be familiar to many local beer lovers as the longtime site of the Real Ale Festival held by Edmonton Beer Geeks Anonymous (EGBA) for many years.
“I know Greg and his team are going to kick ass,” says Shane Groendahl, co-founder of Blindman Brewing.
And he should know: Groendahl founded EGBA and was the driving force behind the Real Ale Festival for years, before the event took a COVID-enforced hiatus. (On that subject, Groendahl says he’s optimistic the Real Ale Festival will be back someday.)
Going back to Ritchie Park for the first edition of Barrel Fest will be “bittersweet,” Groendahl says, but he’s excited about the potential for a new tradition to take hold.
“It’s fun, it’s good to see and I really like it,” he says.
Get the barrel rolling September 23, 2023 at Ritchie Park.
Barrel aging and barrel fermentation harken back to Old World techniques for brewing beer, adding layers of complexity through traits that come from the wood and the barrel’s former contents. Barrels that once held bourbon, wine and fortified wines like port are popular choices among brewers.
Most modern mass-produced beers are made with lab-cultured yeast strains designed to deliver predictable results time after time, and the beer ferments in controlled conditions in steel vessels. In barrel aging, beer that has undergone primary fermentation in steel gets transferred to barrels for added flavour and texture.
Like the name implies, barrel-fermented beers undergo the fermentation process in wood, aided by microorganisms left behind in the the barrel. These beers are usually inoculated with a combination of wild yeast strains and bacteria (a process called mixed fermentation) that add complexity and can take the beer in less predictable directions. Brewers often blend the contents of different barrels and different batches to achieve the balance and flavour profile they want.
While Barrel Fest will be a chance to enjoy some much-loved and award-winning selections, some brewers will be showing off exciting new releases and pouring some rarities. Here are some beers to watch for:
Blind Enthusiasm is debuting Spontaneous Manifesto, the first release from The Monolith made with 100 per cent spontaneous fermentation, a technique that uses airborne microbes to inoculate the beer. The process happens in a room on the top floor of The Monolith, where wort is pumped from the brewhouse on the ground floor into a large open vessel called a koelschip. As the wort cools, it’s exposed to fresh air that comes in through louvers equipped with filters. The brewery blended one-, two-, and three-year- old barrels to create a quintessentially “Edmonton” beer made using local microorganisms.
Establishment Brewing will be pouring Amethyst Realm, a barrel-aged, mixed fermentation golden beer made with whole blueberries and lemon thyme. Festival-goers will also get a sneak peek of a coming release, Messing With The Settings, a “Wild IPA” made by blending a single barrel of mixed culture golden ale with an equal quantity of a previously-released IPA and aged nine months in oak.
“We selected Messing With The Settings for Barrel Fest to showcase the diversity of wild beer being made at The Establishment and to provide an exclusive sneak peek to beer lovers in the province, since we won’t be releasing it to the public until October,” says Damon Moser, who leads the company’s mixed culture program.
Cabin Brewing is bringing a version of its Luna&Fuego Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout that’s been aged in bourbon barrels, as well as Top Shelf — a “Whiskey Sour Ale” made with lemon, vanilla, graham crackers, lactose and cinnamon and aged in bourbon barrels.
Blindman Brewing is bringing a barrel-aged version of its Brett 24-2 Stock Ale, which won Best in Show at the 2022 Alberta Beer Awards, as well as its Dwarf Sour Cherry Saison, which won gold in the mixed fermentation category.
Edmonton’s Trial and Ale is planning to offer A Saison Apparent, taken from the same batch that won gold in its category at the Canada Beer Cup, as well as A Cordial Invitation, a beer made with Montmorency cherries. Brewery co-founder Ryan P. describes it as an homage to Belgium’s tradition of barrel fermented beers, with a North American twist.
