Just emailed Revolution, Few Spirits, and Koval Distilling soliciting barrel donations to refresh our barrel program.
Sun, Oct 6, 2013 - 9:09pm
#1
Getting New Barrels
Getting New Barrels
Joe. I have a friend who was able to source one from one of the big producers in Kentucky for free. He just had to pay for shipping. I can see how he did it. Few is going to charge you at least 100 dollars and I don't believe they have big barrels. Koval has bigger barrels but charge 100 up for them. Bigger guys like Jim beam are less likely to charge as much since they are turning over more product a day than guys like koval and few.
How many barrels are we planning on getting? Is there any interest in getting a wine barrel as well as bourbon or spirit? I will donate funds for a barrel if we can't get some donated.
As of right now, FEW is unable to give us any barrels, but seems interested and may be open to helping us or pairing with us somehow otherwise. Revolution said they have none available at the moment but usually sell them for $50. No word from Koval yet.
Daniel,
Getting some whiskey barrels direct from the source for the cost of shipping would be amazing. See if you can still get that deal or something close to it. Based on what some of the HBT guys did at a recent group buy, I think you can get up to 4 barrels on a pallet, so we could potentially get 4 barrels shipped for the cost of a single freight pallet.
Joe, can you estimate what it would cost to get something like that shipped freight from Kentucky to here?
-Adam
Short version, I'm not sure' I think for a pallet of 4 we might be able to keep it below $200...long version:
Talked to my dispatcher today about what rates might be, couldn't find a salesman today, and there's really no way to really be sure without knowing exactly where they are coming from. The other problem with shipping empty barrels is that the National
Master Freight Classification bases rates on density of freight, empty barrels don't weigh a whole lot and get a little pricier to ship. Also, factor in 40lbs. For a pallet. We would need to find out exactly what zip they are coming from, and what company, it's very likely that whatever distiller they are prospectively coming from has a UPS Freight account and some associated discount which may or may not be better than whatever I can get through my employee discount. The shipper could ship them on their account as a collect shipment or prepaid and forward the charges to us, which would pass on their shipping savings to us, we'd just need to have a check ready for the driver upon delivery, pay by credit card prior to delivery, or we could have a member with a pickup head on down to the terminal to pick them up with a check in hand, I'm assuming money orders work as well, but I don't know. We kinda have to see who is sending them, from where, and see if they have a UPS Freight account/discount Sorry I couldn't be more informative. I know very little about the sales/office side of thing.
4 definitely fit on a skid, as would 6 or 8 if you stack them, but 6 or 8 seems like too many. If shipping for 4 goes over $200 it would be cheaper to wait until Revolution has some available and take them up on their offer for $50 a barrel. I'll email them back and ask then to keep us in the loop.
I'm going to be a damper on the big sounding plans and suggest something smaller again. All of the barrels we currently have came to us unexpectedly. Normally when you plan on barrel aging a beer, you want to have the beer ready to go ino the barrel before ordering the barrel. Ordering a pallet of 4-6 would be not ideal since we don have any beer ready to up inside. Well have to water down the barrel with cleaning solution for several months until the beer is ready, leaching flavor from the oak making them less than ideal barrels. My suggestion would be for people who are currently enthusiastic about barreling to rally together a crew with a recipe. We were in sort of a good spot with the westy if so many people hadnt already bottled it. My experience with this club is that it will take you a year to get four barrel projects off the ground. Why not start one recipe and get people to brew for it. Then once the beer has matured in secondary for long enough ( which would be a few months if its a big high alcohol beer) order your barrel.
That sounds good too. I'm actually not that interested in barreling personally, but if the occasion arose I would, like Josh's Maple Bourbon Barrel that's in the works, I just thought I'd get the ball rolling and some discussion going, try to turn words in to action, you know.