Sharing is Caring

January, where did you go? A great month down at the Oak Barrel, with some amazing new beers gracing the shelves to be shared with our loyal customers. But this article isn’t about us sharing all the 20+ new beers to grace the shelves in a digital format, but we want to focus on how you can share some amazing beers with your friends and family this February. Here is a great collection of large format beverages that we think are certainly better shared that drunk solo.

Mikkeller / Brouwerji Boon Oude Geuze

One of the newest collaborations between two of Europe’s most exciting breweries, this Oude Geuze brings together the forward-thinking work of Mikkeller head brewer/founder Mikkel with one of Belgium’s oldest running beer dynasties at Brouwerji Boon.

This Oude Geuze is a magnificent blend of one, two and three-year-old lambics that have all been aged in oak foeders that have held white vermouth.So, what this means for your mouth parties is that this is a beautifully aged sour that is fresh, funky, vinous and delicious which serves well as great afternoon aperitif to share with friends or accompanying some beautiful fresh seafood.

This immaculate brew over champagne, any day!

Eric Bordelet Poire Granit MAGNUM

In 1992, Eric removed himself as one of the best sommeliers to move back to his family’s estates and orchards in Normandie.A region so synonymous with the purest, oldest and most sought after apples and pears in France for cider, it is only a natural place for someone with his experiences, understanding of flavour and back-up from the icon Didier Dagenau to truly make a name for himself among the cider landscape.

The Poire Granit is an off dry 100% pear cider, picked from 60-foot-tall, 300 year-old trees and is Eric’s ‘Grand Cru’ of pear ciders.The pears selected are small, bitter-sweet and bring an amazing amount of texture, zip and length in this cider.

As we said, sharing is the key to this feature, and 1500ml of amazing pear cider is certainly shareable by any measure.

Shenanigans La Pina Picante

Salsa; whether it be sauce or dance, is a true pleasure for your senses and neither anything you want to be without.Shenanigans set up in 2014 when mates Sam and Dan took their experimental approach to brewing beers out into the wild and started brewing out of various locations to bring the great people of NSW their progressive beers.

La Pina Picante is an amazingly unique twist on the gose style, matching saltiness with some truly Mexican flavours such as pineapple, smoky chipotle and habanero.The brett notes marry beautifully with the fruit and salt to give you an amazingly refreshing banger to washdown some tacos with your amigos!

Against The Grain Bo and Luke Imperial Stout

It seems when great minds come together, some amazing and mind-bending beers are the result.The original release of this beer was meant to be a one-off collaboration between the Against the Grain team and Menno from De Molen.This original collaboration say Menno literally drive from the Netherlands to Louisville in Kentucky to brew a beer based on America’s national spirit, Bourbon.

This beer takes the grains (Corn, Rye and Malted Barley) for making bourbon, they get smoke on cherry wood and transformed into an amazing Imperial stout painstakingly aged in ex-bourbon barrels.

You are left with a beer this amazingly deep, rich, complex and smoky that deserves and needs to be shared with amongst fellow adorers of the finely brewed arts.

Sparrow and Vine Project B Mead

Sparrow and Vine are spearheaded by industry vet Brendan Hilferty, where he and the company wear many different hats.From distribution, wine production, education, bee-keeping and mead production, there is a lot of action being had under their roof in Marrickville.

The Project B mead is a side project for Brendan, which sees a modern reinterpretation of one of the oldest styles of fermented beverages and is made using honey harvested on their very roof.Slightly sparkling and made by just diluting the raw honey and allowing it to ferment naturally.

Floral, bright, spritzy and perfect for the summer months, to be shared in the park, on a balcony or by the pool.