Daniel Higgins

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Editor's note: This story was originally published in January 2016. We're bringing it back because Central Waters' anniversary beer is so good.

AMHERST - It took just three minutes to sell out of some 11,000 bottles of Central Waters Brewing's anniversary beer.

That’s roughly 3,667 bottles per minute or 61 bottles per second of "Eighteen,” this year's celebratory barrel-aged brew. At that rate, last year's Eagles concert at the Resch Center would have sold out its 8,000 seats in a tick over two minutes. As a Broadway musical, that's a sold out five-night run at the Performing Arts Center in Appleton.

It's hardly the first rodeo for this brewery standing at the end of a rural two-lane road. Tickets for 2015's anniversary beer sold out in eight days and "Black Gold" (an anniversary beer with extended aging) sold out in nine hours in September.

Related: Central Waters builds its name on barrel-aging

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Travel plans are necessary because beer aficionados who were quick enough to purchase a $5 ticket online must venture to Amherst (population 1,435, a 3½ hour drive from either Chicago or the Twin Cities) during a designated four-hour time-frame (3-7 p.m., Jan. 30 this year) to complete the purchase of the beer ($15 per 22-ounce bottle) and take possession of up to eight bottles.

Like any rock star worth its froth, these beers attract dedicated fans with some making 7-hour drives, others booking flights and reserving so many hotel rooms that folks at the nearby Stevens Point Area Convention and Visitors Bureau have noticed a coinciding spike in occupancy rates.

"There is no doubt that the barrel aged beers coming out of their program are among the best," said Eric Schulman, co-owner of a New York beer distributor. "You'd be a fool to say they aren't in that conversation."

Schulman said Central Waters barrel-aged beer is one of his company's top 10 items and routinely sells out the first week it arrives.

SHOT OF BOURBON

Like any "overnight" success, it really hasn't happened that way.

Central Waters owners Paul Graham and Anello Mollica have been practicing the art of harvesting a perfectly balanced blend of bourbon and beer flavors from oak barrels for nearly 15 years.

"Paul and I were drinking some beers with another brewer at another brewery's tap house and they were adding shots of Jack Daniels to their stout and we thought, 'We can do this,'" Mollica said.

By "do this," he means get the bourbon flavor in the beer without adding the shots.

They knew someone, who knew someone, who got them a few oak barrels and put their first imperial stout into a bourbon barrel in 2001. Barrel-aged beer wasn't even a category at that year’s Great American Beer Festival competition but has grown to have the only category among the top five most entered in 2015 that didn't include the words "pale ale."

Using wood during the brewing process is widespread, with 85 percent of all brewers taking a shot at it in 2014 according to one Brewers Association report, but few are in as deep into woods as Central Waters.

After building a warehouse to hold 1,000 oak barrels in 2010, Central Waters built its latest warehouse in 2014 with the capacity to hold as many as 8,000 oak barrels. Currently, 5,000 barrels of beer are comfortably aging.

"We ramped the program up quite a bit last year so more was going into the warehouse than was coming out," Graham said. "About 35 percent of our production runs through oak and is part of the roughly 14,000 barrels of beer we produced last year."

UNIQUE BLEND

It's not uncommon for craft breweries to have a flagship beer that accounts for a big percentage of production — many upwards of 50 percent — but those are typically India pale ales, ambers, pilsners or other common styles that require less time, space and expense to scale as demand grows.

If an IPA takes off, the brewer can drop in a couple of tanks, brew, fill, ferment for a few weeks, bottle and ship. Then sanitize the tanks and repeat.

If a barrel-aged beer takes off, that could require buying more tanks but definitely means adding lots of space and acquiring lots of barrels, which cost $120 to $190 each. Then tack on time and effort to age the beer for 6 months, a year, two years or possibly longer, while monitoring to make sure the bourbon flavor is present but doesn't overtake the beer characteristics. After each batch of beer has been blended and carbonated, the barrels are dumped (some sold as planters or decorations) and its time to work with brokers to purchase more barrels and start the process again.

Central Waters ships its barrel-aged beer in kegs, bombers, and four-packs of 12-ounce bottles known as the Brewers Reserve Series. A barleywine, a Scotch ale, and a stout have become regulars in the Reserve Series. Wisconsinites get a bonus brew, a cherry stout.

"We put 80 pounds of Door County cherries into every bourbon barrel," Mollica says as he points to a set of barrels with blow off tubes. "There is still living yeast in the beer and they start eating the sugars in the cherries. We get a secondary fermentation in the oak barrels."

Stuffing cherries into barrels and cultivating a secondary fermentation is hardly the only unusual bit of brewing happening in the warehouse.

"A lot of what you see in here is just us truly messing around," Mollica said.

Last year there was Headless Heron (pumpkin spice ale), Rye Barrel Chocolate Porter and Cassian Sunset (imperial stout with coffee, vanilla and cinnamon).

Adding new flavors, though, adds considerable time and risk.

After coming up with an idea for a beer, there are months of waiting to try it. If it's not up to Central Waters standards, brew it again, pour it into new barrels and watch the months pass by. Taste it again. Once the beer passes the taste test, it's probably another year away from the coolers and taps.

"Every time somebody sees a new barrel-aged beer from us, that beer is at least two years in the making. Some of our beers are five years in the making before they see a label and the shelf," Mollica said. "We're brewing beers now for '20' and we're talking about beers for our 21st anniversary so we have something extra special."

Forecasting is also part of the barrel aging equation.

"It's hard to think, 'how much beer am I going to need in four years for this,'" Mollica said. "And gauge that out so you have enough, but not too much."

PARTY ON

It's difficult to believe there is such a thing as too much, considering 3,000 people will flood the brewery during its anniversary party.

In addition to selling tickets for bottle purchases, general admission tickets sold out in 3 hours. Each $13 ticket ($5 donated to charity) includes two draft beers but doesn't reserve any bottles of "Eighteen." General admission ticket holders have the first chance to buy unclaimed bottles starting at 7 p.m.

The ticketing process grew out of the "Fifteen" release party in 2013 when folks made long trips to the brewery, waited in line and then were told the beer ran out.

"We got lambasted on social media," Mollica said.

It was Central Waters' first anniversary party after "1414" won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival, which brought its barrel-aging program to the attention of craft beer enthusiasts beyond the brewery's distribution range and ramped up demand.

Then "16" won gold at the 2014 World Beer Cup, elevating the buzz for Central Waters anniversary brews.

While the anniversary beers have developed a fanatical following, there is plenty of demand for Central Waters' barrel-aged beers at retail locations in its distribution footprint of Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois and New York.

"It's huge. It's one of the more sought after beers," said Chris Zirbel who owns Ridgeview Liquor in Ashwaubenon. "They've built a reputation that's moved from Wisconsin to the Midwest."

Zirbel says when he announces he has the latest Central Waters bourbon barrel-aged beer in stock, customers show up that day. First coming in for themselves, then those buying for out-of-state friends and family. The post on the liquor store's Facebook page announcing the return of De Kleine Dood (formerly named La Petite Mort) came with a "limit of two bottles per customer," note.

Central Waters isn't sitting still when it comes to its aging program. The brewers are not only experimenting with beer recipes written to blend with bourbon barrel characteristics. They're also branching out to Tequila barrels. The brewery also recently acquired barrels used in aging maple syrup to see what new flavors they can draw out.

"It pushes the boundaries for what people think of, when they think of beer. They don't think of stuff like this," Mollica said. "This is aficionado beer, this is to drink it for flavor. That's one thing I've noticed as I get older, I get appreciative of what I'm drinking. I'm not drinking to get hammered, I'm drinking because I like the flavor of it and I want something that's full flavored and that I enjoy."

TASTING NOTES

Bourbon barrel-aged beers begin life as any other craft beer, going from mash to fermenter — minus the carbonation process. The beer is poured into barrels, aged, then blended together, carbonated and bottled or kegged.

Typically stouts and barleywines are used because of the strong flavor profiles that aren't easily overpowered by the bourbon flavors.

"A lot of people drink our beer and say, 'you put bourbon in it.' And I say, 'really, it tastes like a barrel, and so does bourbon,'" Mollica said.

Expect a high alcohol by volume content. Most won't dip below 9 percent ABV and finding these beers with 13 percent ABV isn't uncommon.

"It's not a session beer," Mollica said. "You're not going to sit down and pound a six-pack of it — though it's been done, and it's probably not the greatest idea — but it's delicious. They're great campfire sipping beers, that's really what all these are made for."

Because of the time and expense involved with producing barrel-aged beer, a good one isn't cheap. Expect a 22-ounce bottle to sell for $8-20, with many in the $15 range. Central Waters' four-packs of 12-ounce bottles in its Brewers Reserve Series sell for about $14.

Make the most of it.

Central Waters worked with a glassmaker to develop its snifters specifically for barrel-aged beers after a skeptical Mollica tasted the same beer from various glassware designs.

Also, if the barrel-aged beer is in your refrigerator, Mollica says to take it out about 15 minutes before serving. Barrel-aged beers are best served in the 50-55 degree temperature range.

"The end of your first glass should always taste like, one more, maybe not two more," Mollica said. "You should at least be able to finish it and go, 'I could have one more of those.'"

Daniel Higgins writes about food and drink for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Email: daniel.higgins@gannettwisconsin.com,

Twitter and Instagram @HigginsEats, facebook.com/gwmdanhiggins.