Queer-Owned Giant Jones Brewing’s Milestone Brew

After years of patience, Queer-owned Giant Jones Brewing recently announced the release of the Barrel Aged Strong Ale last week in collaboration with State Line Distillery. Vacationers may recall that we’ve featured the queer couple Jessica and Erika Jones, owners of Giant Jones Brewing, a few times, including receiving an award from the Brewers Association in October 2022!

Well, it looks like that hit another major milestone!  State Line Distillery founder John Mleziva called up Giant Jones brewer Jessica Jones with a proposition. “John called me up and said, ‘Hey Jessica, we’re emptying our first whiskey barrels to blend our first-ever American Single Malt Whiskey, and I’d love for you to do something special with these barrels,’” said Jones. “Well, shoot, I thought I was never going to make a barrel-aged beer, but I can’t pass this up!”

There was just as much excitement on the other end of the collaboration at State Line Distillery! 

“I was thrilled that Jessica was excited to partner with us to craft a beer using the empty barrels of our first release of State Line American Single Malt Whiskey,” said Mleziva.

Beer connoisseurs converged on Madison, Wisconsin, this past weekend to attend beer release events at State Line Distillery last Friday and at Giant Jones Brewing on Saturday. It was to celebrate the inaugural collaboration between the two powerhouses and to give locals an opportunity to taste the Barrel Aged Strong Ale – Giant Jones Brewing’s inaugural venture into barrel-aged beers. 

The limited-edition brew marks a milestone for Giant Jones Brewing and State Line Distillery who have created one-of-a-kind beer. 

The Year-Long Process of a Unique Brew

When Jones hung up with Mleziva last year, she knew a lot of work ahead. “I didn’t have any special equipment for filling barrels and had never done it before, and I also didn’t have a beer ready to put in these barrels, and you want to fill them while they’re still wet inside, so I had to move pretty quickly,” Jessica Jones recalled.

‘Quickly’ meant using a fast-fermenting and clean/fruity yeast strain, the Kveik yeast, and pulling together a modified beer based on the Giant Jones Scotch Ale recipe. “I modified the recipe to leave space for the barrel and whiskey flavors to pull in and compliment the maltiness of the beer,” said Jones. 

To put the beer in the barrels, Jones called up another good neighbor, Working Draft’s brewer Clint Lohman, to borrow equipment from. “It feels like everything we undertake is a community endeavor,” said Giant Jones co-owner Erika Jones. “We rely on the generosity, expertise, and friendship of our neighboring businesses and fellow beverage makers time and again, and we are so fortunate to be able to celebrate this awesome community of makers with this collaboration.”

The beer was transferred into the barrels on February 23, 2023, to age for about a year. Four barrels in total were filled with the strong ale, one peat-smoked barrel, and three non-peated barrels made the final blend of the barrel-aged beer, along with two half-barrel kegs of clean, non-barrel-aged beer. The aged beer was finished by blending it with actively fermenting Giant Jones Ryewine – a process known as krausening – to balance the barrel flavors with a fresh beer quality.

While the Giant Jones beer rested and soaked up flavor in the barrels, State Line Distillery was busy blending and proofing State Line American Single Malt Whiskey, their first-ever whiskey released on July 30th, 2023. “Distilling whiskey is an undertaking like few others I have known,” said Mleziva. “It requires foresight, patience, and a steadfast commitment to the process, which is to understand that complex whiskey takes time.”

Even with the experience and patience of five years aging his own whiskey under his belt, State Line Distillery Founder John Mleziva has been excitedly awaiting this release. “After spending nearly a year aging, this Barrel-Aged Strong Ale is a beautiful and complex beer that has notes of stone fruit and raisins, with incredible depth and a long finish.”

Want to know more about this unique collaboration to create Barrel Aged Strong Ale? Visit Giant Jones Brewing’s website and State Line Distillery’s website for more information on that and locally-made craft beer and spirits made in Madison, Wisconsin.