"We're really excited about Heresy," says Weirbacher founder Weirback. "It's a real bottle-conditioned Bourbon barrel aged beer. We started out with test batches using barrels from different whiskey companies and found that we liked the whiskey character we got from one, and the oak flavors from another and the vanilla notes from third. So we're taking the extra step to age each batch in a combination of barrels.

"Twelve oaks barrels yield 20 barrels of beer, so we split the brew into three different sets of barrels, three of this one, four of that one, five of the other. Then we combine them in a single brite tank after aging to get all the characteristics we want in a single batch of beer."

Heresy will be available in both 12 and 22oz bottles in Pennsylvania, 22oz bottles in other states where Weyerbacher sells. It will be released "as soon we can get label approval," Weyerbacher promised. "At this point, I guess it will right around the Fourth of July."

"Originally we planned this to be purely a Pennsylvania beer, but when I mentioned it to our New Jersey wholesalers, they expressed interest. Then when I gave them samples, they said they were good for 100 cases right off the bat. Rather than go to the expense and time of having to create sixpacks holders for out-of-state sales, we decided to look for a 22oz botting line and concentrate on single bottles sales. Luckily, were able to find and buy one very quickly from Three Floyds in Indiana, at a reasonable price."

That decision, Weirback says, will impact more than just the Heresy release and, in fact, has opened some new thinking and new avenues for Weyerbacher. "Down the road a bit, maybe three to six months from now, we plan to do a barrel-aged version of our Blithering Idiot barleywine and we're already looking at turning out some speciality ales in big bottles."