Against the Grain owning partner Sam Cruz picks up his empty brandy barrels at Copper & Kings to begin the aging process for a custom craft beer to serve at Lock, Stock & Smoking Barrels Oct. 30, 2015.
Last year during Louisville Craft Beer Week, The Copper & Kings American Brandy Co. hosted the 1st Lock, Stock & Smoking Barrels at their beautiful location in Butchertown. If you missed it, you missed some amazing one-off Kentucky beers that were aged in Copper & Kings’ used brandy barrels. There was some great stuff there: Takashi, from Against the Grain was an Imperial Stout that sat in a barrel while soaking up all that brandy goodness. I also remember Beer Engine’s barleywine, as it packed a wallop. BBC Production brought their Barbarian Honey that also gained some great flavors from the brandy barrels.
Not sure which of those beers will be making another appearance, but we’ll know closer to the event, which is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 30, 2015. The festival of barrel-aged beer, cider, brandy, coffee and smoking hot food and music will take place from 6 to 10 p.m. at the American brandy company’s Butchertown distillery, located at 1121 E. Washington St.
This year, they are adding some national breweries to the mix. Sierra Nevada (Chico, Cali.), 3 Floyds (Munster, Ind.), Oskar Blues (Brevard, N.C.), Dogfish Head (Milton, Del.) and Crispin Cider (Colfax, Cali.) will join esteemed regional brewers including Against the Grain, Apocalypse Brew Works, Akasha Brewing Co., Alltech Lexington Brewing Co., Beer Engine, Bluegrass Brewing Co., Country Boy Brewing, Falls City, Flat 12 Bierwerks, New Albanian Brewing Company and West Sixth Brewing.
A portion of the proceeds from the event will benefit the Beargrass Creek Alliance and promote their rain barrel storm water mitigation initiatives.
