Anvil & Stave

photo from AleSmith.
photo from AleSmith.

This month, AleSmith Brewing is opening Anvil & Stave: A Barrel-Aged Beer Experience inside their already open tap room. Once inside you will be able to blend your own barrel-aged beers.
Final details are not set in concrete but you be offered a menu from the vast stockpile of bourbon and other barrels and allowed to “design” a blend much like ordering a taster tray. Give me 25% of this + 30% of this + 15% of this, up to 100%.

The finished product would be handed to you from behind the bar and you would sit and enjoy. There remains the possibility that you would be able to do the actual pouring work at some point but that, of course, might require a different set of rules and procedures.

Either way, this is a great way to appreciate what the master blenders are doing. There will be trial and error which would be a good name for a blender, now that I think about it.