Beer Spotlight!

Solace Agree to Disagree

$16.99 for the 16oz four-pack cans
English Style Barleywine aged in Whiskey Barrels

In 2017, Head Brewer Drew Wiles co-founded Solace Brewing Company with two other partners (Jon Humerick, operations guy and Mike Arms, money guy) though he had just started home brewing five years prior. Formerly a researcher in genetic medicine (!!!), Wiles had been at Beltway Brewing Company for three years prior, where he’d set up their lab and quality control program. He had, next, taken over as their production manager before starting Solace in Sterling, VA. Though Solace’s first beers were a session IPA and a Witbier, from the beginning, Wiles had his eye on barrel-aging, a brewing endeavor that Solace continues to this day.

The Agree to Disagree is a Barleywine style ale that has spent 18 months aging in whiskey barrels. Made in the English style, the core barleywine enjoys moderate hopping so that (at least, we imagine so that) the resultant beer can be more about what the malts and whiskey notes can do for each other. If that was the intention, it was a good call.

Bourbon barrel aging can impart strong notes into a beer, making it a challenge to find the balance with something like a Barleywine. Whiskey barrel-aging can be a little softer, and those soft whiskey notes really nicely frame this barleywine, which rides closer to an Old Ale by eschewing a Barleywine’s usual fruit notes for straight-up caramel and toffee flavors.