Larry Carr is a volunteer at the Filson. His son Alan and family comes down for the holiday every other year and they have a tradition of touring a distillery on Friday after Thanksgiving when they are in Kentucky. This year I helped them make arrangements to tour Four Roses and set up a 9:00 tour with Al Young at the distillery. We were joined on this tour by John Lipman, who also brought along his camera and hopefully share a photo or two with us.
Let me start by saying that in my opinion, Al Young is a true gentleman and scholar that is a real credit to not only Four Roses, but also the industry as a whole. Four Roses has only been open for tours for the general public since September and I think they have done an excellent job in arranging the tour through the distillery. It is top notch and very informative.
We started by meeting in the visitor's center and watching the video. In some ways it is very much like the other videos shown at distilleries in Kentucky, but I have to say that I am impressed with there video in more than one way. It is very nicely done with many of the bells and whistles you expect with modern camera technical equipment, but it is also very open and honest. They don't try to make claims of being the first or the best - they just take pride in what they do. The video was followed by a Q & A session where Al answered any and all questions. There was even an easel with a flip pad in the room with their two mash bills displayed on the open page. They use two different mashbills - the first is 70/25/5 corn/rye/malt and the next is 65/30/5 corn/rye/malt - and they have 5 strains of yeast. They can make 10 different beers with these combinations and a multitude of flavor profiles from these beers. I should add here that Larry is a retired professor from U of L medical school where he taught pharmacology. There were some very interesting questions asked in this period and Al handled them all with great skill and knowledge.
We left the visitor's center and then walked over to the grain receiving lab and Al discussed the quality control they use in selecting the grain. This is a very small building that looks very much like a converted guard shack but inside is a whole range of equipment needed to run the test on the grain. They get all of their corn from Indiana and the rye comes from a variety of sources, including Germany.
After leaving the grain building we entered the distillery and were shown the control center before going up to where they have three yeast tubs where they prepare the yeast before adding it to the mash. Al explained the growth of the yeast and how aproximately 300 gallons, or 1/4 of the tub will be added to the mash for fermentation. That led us to our next stop - the fermenters.
Al took us up to where we could see a variety of the fermenters and a beer tub, allowing us to see quiet clearly the mash at different stages of fermentation, from new mash to three day old. He then took us down to the floor where we were allowed to taste mash straight from the cooker as it filled a mash tub, then taste some from various stages of maturity. The new mash is very sweet and it gets more sour as the yeast does its work and creates alcohol.
The next stop was the stills. We sampled the white dog from the spirit safe for the beer still which was about 132 proof. It was very clean and had a very strong licorice taste at that time. Al explained that a different yeast strain would have a slightly different flavor and that is why they use the different yeast strains. He then let us taste from the doubler. The licorice was not as pronounced but still there, mostly in the finish. This spirit is about 138 proof.
The next step was back to the visitor's center for a taste of the Four Roses Yellow label and the single barrel. The single barrel is always from the higher rye mash bill and is much more full bodied than the Yellow Label. Both are good products and very enjoyable. Al then stood around with us answering questions for about a half an hour. We then went to the gift shop to purchase a few items and left. It was an excellent tour that I would highly recommend.
Mike Veach