Anniversary Barley Wine
Buy our most recent Maiden vintage
Maiden '24
Maiden is our Anniversary celebration, a blend of barley wine aged in a multitude of barrels sourced from the finest wine and spirit producers worldwide.
Each year's vintage is unique, so visit our website to learn more about the beer in this bottle.
Maiden 2024 is a much more spirit-led blend than most vintages, but still brings the familiar strong wine-like fruit character. The team Blending Day produced three different - all very good versions - and the final bottled blend encapsulates and shows off a combination of each of their key elements: strong citrusy spirit warmth, bright berry fruit and complex aged characteristics.
This vintage utilised nine different barrels:
Rum 23% / Tequila 12% / Rye Whiskey 10% / Bourbon 9% / Red Wine 7% / Banyuls 7% / Port 7% / Cognac 6% / Fresh 9%
The Story Behind The Beer
Maiden is a labour of love. Our American style Barley Wine is aged in a variety of spirit and wine barrels, before being blended back together with a percentage of fresh beer, to create that year’s vintage. The barrels that have been used are left with 10% aged beer in them before being topped up with fresh Maiden, in what is a form of the Solera system.
This means every vintage can be a totally different creation, despite coming from the exact same base. We believe that the beer improves each and every year because of the additional depth and complexity we're able to call on from the barrels as time goes by.
Blending Day
Once a year, staff from all across the company gather to begin the process of creating the final Maiden blend. It’s important to have a good number of people, as tastes and preferences vary! Samples from selected barrels are drawn from each available barrel of Maiden by our Barrel Manager.
Staff split into teams, and then spend the morning section tasting through every single sample, diligently taking notes on aroma, flavour, bitterness. After a break for lunch, the blending process begins, using the learnings from the morning session to find a blend of samples to create the desired experience.
Click here to find out more about Maiden blending, and just what goes into bringing you a fresh bottle of the anniversary barley wine each year.
Past Vintages
Maiden editions from previous years. Click on a bottle to find out more about it.
