It's finally ready! As you probably know, the barrels I use to age Lucille's Barrel-Aged Honey have an extended life. They start out aging whiskey at local distilleries. When they've been emptied out, I load them up with honey. If it's a full sized barrel, that could be 600 pounds of honey going in there. As soon as the barrels are done aging the honey, they are sent off to eager local breweries waiting to fill them with beer.
One of my favorite local breweries is Georgetown Brewing in Seattle. Their taproom is amazing, and they always have multiple beers to try. They are best known for Manny's, Lucille's, Bodhizafa, Johnny Utah and the 9lb Hammer, but in addition to their staples they always have specialty beers on tap. Every time you go in they've got something new, which makes going to Georgetown fun EVERY TIME! While I was enjoying some tasty samples, I started talking with them about the barrel-aged process to see if they might like to age a batch of their beer in one of the barrels. Not too surprisingly, I received an email shortly thereafter from Craig Becker wanting to know more about this honey lined barrel I had available.
In October 2022, I had a full-sized barrel from Copperworks available from batch 8 and Craig came down to get it. A few weeks later, he invited me up to watch the beer go into the barrel. There's a cool little video from that trip that you can check out on our YouTube channel by clicking this link: https://youtu.be/9mBtDNeC1Xw.
Craig made a Belgian style beer and wanted to keep in the barrel for around a year. Well, it ended up being just about that and now the beer is out of the barrel! Peter Langer, Georgetown's Taproom Manager, gave me a chance to try it in October when I met up with him to plan the Release Party. The beer is fantastic, and I can't wait for you all to try it.
So mark your calendars and come help us celebrate the release of The Fellowship of the Bee at Georgetown Brewery, November 18th from Noon-6pm.