I knew when I got my barrel I was going to put a few clean beers in it before switching it over to funky/sour beers. The first beer to go through the barrel, a Russian Imperial Stout, turned out fantastic, but was also an obvious choice for a whiskey barrel. For beer number two, I wanted to go a bit off the books and do something small. A beer that would be complimented by the lingering bits of whiskey flavor left in the barrel and could do with a bit of a body punch up by the oak. Something that you don't regularly see on the shelves of your favorite liquor store. The more I thought about it, the more it became obvious, I was going to to an English Dark Mild and age it just until the oak started to peek through.

Milds, as you could guess by their name, are mild beers by nature. They don't have huge flavor profiles and don't get you drunk just by smelling them. They're low in ABV and while they can pack a good punch flavor-wise, they're beers meant to be drunk in large amounts, so there's nothing too aggressive about them. There are lighter and darker milds, and can run the flavor gamut from sweet and caramelly to dry and roasty with chocolate, dark fruit, coffee, or licorice notes sprinkled in. Dark milds are often akin to a light porter, with a bit of roast and toast to their malt profile, with some chocolate/coffee underpinnings, and I thought this would be a great beer to put through my barrel after the stout.