Bourbon & beer
Seminar, cigar event features Kentucky brewerdistiller
There are nine official stops on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, and Alltech Lexington Brewing & Distilling Co. is one of them.
The company, colloquially known as Kentucky Brewing, received the rare recognition in 2012, according to Katixa M. Mercier, sales representative for Favorite Brands, which distributes its products in New Mexico. New Mexicans can learn about and enjoy some of its bourbons and brews during a seminar, tap takeovers and a cigar pairing Sept. 22 and 23 at various Albuquerque locations.
The brewery and distillery date back to 1794. The company was most recently acquired in 1999 by Pearse Lyons, who was born and raised in Ireland. Lyons is a fifth-generation cooper, or barrel maker, and received a formal degree at the British School of Malting and Brewing. He worked with Guinness and Harp brewing and was a biochemist at Irish Distillers, which produces Jameson whiskey.
“He came to the states and settled in Kentucky, and when he got there he really missed Irish-style lagers and lighter beers and created Kentucky Ale,” Mercier said. “… He really wanted to have something that reminded him of home, and as time went on he really wanted to make it something that was a blend of his new life being Irish and now being American as well. … That’s when he realized, ‘All right, I miss Irish whiskey,’ so he came out with Pearse Lyons Reserve. And then he said, ‘You know what? We need to make bourbon and start barrel-aging this ale,’ and thus was born their Kentucky Bourbon Ale. That’s their flagship beer. … It was kind of a blend of Pearse Lyons’ background of being Irish and now being in Kentucky.”
The company also produces Town Branch bourbon and Town Branch rye. Town Branch is a creek in Lexington, Ky.
“(Town Branch) and has a tremendous amount of history,” Mercier said. “During the Prohibition, it caught fire and it was kind of a waterway aflame that led to all of the people that were illegally distilling.”
Town Branch, Pearse Lyons Reserve and the limited-release Rickhouse Series will be discussed and sampled during a seminar on Sept. 22 at O’Niell’s Heights. The Rickhouse series will be featured exclusively at O’Neill’s locations in the Northeast Heights and in Nob Hill, but several of Alltech Lexington Brewing & Distilling’s beers and bourbons will be featured during a tap takeover at Sister Bar in Downtown and at Imbibe in Nob Hill.
“The Rickhouse Series is a limited-release, very rare, extended barrel-aged line of beers that they have, and they seldom make it out of Kentucky,” Mercier said. “They are kind of peppered around a couple of states, and we’re lucky enough to get them, and O’Neill’s has the exclusive on them, both locations. This is going to be a bourbon barrel-aged strawberry wheat and another one that’s called Break in the Law, and it’s a brown sugar imperial stout, that’s also barrel-aged.”