Haberdasher Hop Factory: How Does IPA Beer Become Whiskey?

[00:00:00] This might be the strangest whiskey style spirit I've ever tasted, because the bottle actually starts its life as a finished ipa. This is the Hop Factory from the Haberdashery Artisan Distillery in Franklin, Indiana. And today we're going to taste it. But first you have to understand how they make this stuff because the process is really interesting. I recently had Haberdashery owner and head distiller Brooks Bemis on my podcast, the Indiana Success Happy Hour. That's my other podcast that really led to all this tequila stuff. And we got to talk about his story, the distillery and where the haberdashery is headed next. Brooks founded Haberdashery in 2017, making it the first Johnson County, Indiana's first operational distillery since Prohibition. And they've built a reputation for doing some pretty creative things with local Indiana producers. Hop Factory might be the best example of that. It begins with Superfly IPA from the Oak and Barrel Brewing Company in Greenwood. And I'm not talking about wort or something made specifically for distillation. This is bottle ready beer. Haberdashery brings it in in about 100 gallons at a time. They double pot, distill it to roughly 150 proof. And here's the crazy number. It takes 15 ounces of beer to produce approximately one ounce of this hop factory. They're also really selective about the cut. The early portion of the hearts contains most of the big hop flavors, so that's the portion they use for the Hop factory. The spirit then goes into bourbon barrels at around 120 proof and ages for one to two years. The used bourbon barrels is an important part because Brooks isn't trying to bury all of that hop character underneath a bunch of oak. The barrel gives it some caramel, vanilla and maturity while still allowing the IPA character to survive. According to the distillery, you should be able to find floral, fruity characteristics, peaches, orange peel and a creamy quality in this. So that's what I'm going to look for. I haven't tasted this in the glass today, but I did in our first podcast. There's a little bit gone, so let's put this in the glass, let's nose it and see what we have here. [00:02:04] Now guys, remember I can't have gluten, so I haven't had beer in several years. And what I was really excited about, the taste of this and the smell of this is I actually got the taste of beer. So let's first go into the smell. First thing I get is this really oaky Musty barrel smell, but I get this weird floral compound that you would get from an IPA beer. Now I have to tell you, IPA beers are not my jam. I haven't been able to do gluten free beers because I'm not a craft beer guy. I'm a very neutral. [00:02:35] Give me a Corona Ultra, right? Something with very little flavor. This has a lot of flavor. It's floral, it's creamy, it's caramelly. And you get this little bit of a note of beer. So. So let's dive into the taste of it. [00:02:51] And that's where I taste beer. I get this beer note, this caramel note, this vanilla note and this bourbon barrel oaky note. It's really good. So to think they've taken this beer and distilled it into this higher proof, which it's coming in at 49.8 ABV. This is batch three, bottle 14. They're in small batches. This is a really, really small place. They're putting everything cast strength so they're not watering it down. They. This is really, really cool. This is so outside of my normal review, talking about an IPA beer that's been double distilled, put into a bourbon barrel and then aged. This is something that really talks about how distillation and flavors really change and why I like distillation so much. If you're ever in Indiana and you need to taste something completely different, you got to go to Franklin, Indiana to the haberdashery and check out what they have. They did bring gin and bourbon and this and three or four other things for us to taste. Jump over to Indiana Success Happy hour. Watch the interview with Brooks. He really explains everything they're doing. This really tastes fantastic. Again, this isn't something you'll find on the Tequila Report, but go check it out. Tequilreport.com subscribe thanks for watching. Have a great night. And for me, I'm going to have the little taste of beer that I never get to get. Cheers. Have a great one.