Magical Garden City water, elbow grease, time, and Keebler elves.

You can find our beer in both of our Taprooms and, occasionally, we will be on draft at a few restaurants or bars in town. We are a TINY brewery operating on a 5 bbl brew system, so most days we just brew enough beer to keep our taprooms supplied. Luckily, both taprooms are open  seven days a week now!

The Downtown Boise Taproom does not produce beer on-site, therefore, we are classified strictly as a “bar” according to the Idaho State Alcohol Beverage Control and are not allowed to let minors on the patio or in the Taproom.

According to the Idaho State ABC, minors are now allowed in brewery and winery tasting rooms, but it is up to the discretion of each business. At Barbarian Brewing we allow minors on our patio only due to brewery safety concerns. Breweries are dangerous production facilities and many of our brewery hazards reside VERY close to our taproom. Therefore, kids on the patio only. We appreciate your understanding on this matter!

Unfortunately, not at this time. Our town elders won’t let us dance…or sell beer over the interwebs.

You bet. It’s pretty respectable these days with all the new breweries and wineries popping up. Most of the old GC riff-raff have migrated east to the fertile lands between the Torch and Cabana Inn.

We like wolves….

But here’s the real story. The owners of Barbarian have a Siberian Husky named Conan and he was named Conan because it’s Gaelic for “Little Wolf.” The scientific name for hops is “humulus lupulus” and lupus is the diminutive of lupus (wolf). So we called the first IPA we made Little Wolf IPA and the wolf names started flowing with the rest of the IPAs: Big Bad Wolf, Beta Wolf, NeoWolf, Space Wolf, Wolf’s Bane, etc.

Brett is short for brettanomyces, which is wild yeast. We use several types of wild yeast strains in our barrel aged funky and sour beers to help give complex flavors to the beer.

We make two types of sours here at Barbarian: Kettle sours (quick turn around) and Barrel-aged Sours (months in the barrel!)

Kettle Sours– The wort is created and bacteria, lactobacillus, is added before it is brewed. The beer is then boiled, hence killing the bacteria, fermented, carbonated, kegged and ready for draft in 2-3 weeks.

Barrel Aged Sours– The wort is made like a normal CLEAN beer, transferred to the fermenter, where it ferments until the desired alcohol percentage is reached, then it is transferred to an oak barrel. The brettanomyces/lactobacillus are then added to the barrel for a SLOW, ORGANIC transformation of the beer. This process could take 3 months to 2 years depending on if the barrel is brand new to us or the desired outcome of the beer. Once James determines its readiness, fruit/spices may be added , then it will sit for another month or two and then kegged and bottled.

Well, our beers our a little higher in octane that most places here in town, so you should probably call a cab if you plan on staying a while.