Deconstruction, our upcoming barrel aged deconstructed golden ale, was an exercise in the art of process. Over the course of its development Joe and I had the opportunity to delve into the intricacies of a malt bill, the hop profile, our pilot system and numerous yeast stains – and how they all interact with various oak barrels with various histories.

This kind of complexity is annoying at best and unreasonably interesting at least.

Needless to say, the government took some convincing to let us sell it. Beers aged in barrels which have been used for other alcohols are regulated much the same way as malternative beverages in the US. The TTB (tax and trade bureau), who approves labels to facilitate interstate commerce for us regional brewers, requires beers with questionable ingredients, or with alcohol potentially contributed by other means than primary fermentation to be approved after reviewing a formula or Statement of Process. This could mean blending straight ethanol and flavoring into light beer or aging beer in wine or whiskey barrels. In our case, our process was many layered and after some failed submissions, we finally arrived at a 5 page description of the inception of Deconstruction in order to protect consumers from our deliberately incremental approach to brewing. Below, please find the full story (thoughtfully redacted) of Decon’s (De-con’s) life. The beer is slated to be released August 7th at a taping event at Odell. We’ll be pairing fresh western slope fruit converted into tiny pies. I’ll be securing the fruit at this weekend’s Old Town Farmer’s Market.

Keep it surreal, Zach