Carrie Atkins

KC’s Very Own, Torn Label Brewing Company Beer Candle

“House Brew” in Wax …. Smells INTOXICATINGLY Good

Now you have the option to “sniff local” after you “drink local” in Kansas City! We will be unveiling the Torn Label Brewing Company “House Brew” candle this first Friday, LIVE at the Pop-Up Maker Mart hosted by Torn Label.

A Roasty & Toasty Full Bodied Beer Candle Story

What does Torn Label Brewing Company say about their popular “House Brew?”

6.5% ABV; 25 IBU; Thou Mayest Sumatra Toddy. House Brew is a coffee wheat stout brewed with Sumatran Toddy from our friends at Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters.

The Different Types of Beer Scented Candle

Just like craft beer from your local brewery or the liquor store up the street, craft beer candles fall into a different scent style or category. Each style has its own distinctive flavor and aroma.

This article is intended ONLY to help educate the non-craft-beer drinkers. For all of you craft beer geeks, please go easy on me (this is NOT intended for you).

It is what is added “on top” of the traditional style base that makes the craft brew or beer scented candle uniquely different!

The Porter Beer Scented Candle

Porters are typically brewed using a pale malt base with the addition of black malt, crystal, chocolate or smoked brown malt, and a good amount of hops.

Porter beers and porter beer scented candles traditionally have a significant caramel, nutty, and/or toffee character. Secondary aromas commonly detected are coffee, licorice, biscuits or toast.

Fun Fact: In 18th-century London, a popular beverage fondly referred to as “Entire”  was made mixing 1/3 pint each of ale, beer and twopenny (the strongest brew). This is what became the “Porter.”

The Stout Beer Scented Candle

A stout beer is known for its standout, roasted flavor, and aroma. Its distinctive coffee flavor & aromas come from the unmalted roasted barley.

Some common flavors and aromas associated with a Stout or stout style beer scented candle are; coffee, oatmeal, sweet, cream and bourbon barrel.

Fun Fact: A “stout” is really not a beer style. It is really just a stronger Porter. Way back in the late 1600s to early 1700s, a Stout was a stronger, fuller-bodied variety of porter, fondly referred to as “stout porters.”

Our Stout Beer Scented Candles: Angry Bean Vanilla Espresso Stout, Organic Chocolate Stout.

The IPA (Indian Pale Ale) Beer Scented Candle

An IPA really is an acquired taste and is often considered to be a brew for the more advanced craft beer drinker.

This is not entirely true when it comes to the IPA beer scented candle. Our Bitter Sweet IPA beer candle is actually our best seller.

Depending on the Hops type, IPAs can smell like citrus, pine, or flowers. IPAs can also have earthy, spicy, fruity and herbal notes.

Our IPA Beer Scented Candles: Bitter Sweet IPA, Raspberry IPA

The Ale Beer Scented Candle

There are many types of Ale’s out there. We will touch on a few!

The Brown Ale

Barley & Hops Craft Candles has a brown ale that is out of this world!

The brown ale usually has a slightly higher alcohol content, and often a more prominent hops flavor. It can also have background flavors of bread (yeast), chocolate, coffee, and sometimes dark berries.

Some common flavors and aromas associated with a brown ale are; chocolate, a lightly-roasted coffee, dark berries, a subtle nuttiness, and smooth malt.

The Spiced Ale

The spiced ale style is specially herbed and or spiced with anything from the seasonal spiced Fall Pumpkin ale to Christmas spiced ales with beers spices such as honey, nutmeg, cinnamon, and all-spice. The B&H “Son of a Sailor” spiced amber ale features a blend of hoppy pine, warm clove, subtle honey and vanilla. Our Honey Ale combines strawberries, apples, white grape, bright citrus, earthy honey and spiced vanilla.

Our Ale Beer Scented Candles: Screaming Vixen Hazelnut Nectar Brown Ale, Son of a Sailor Spiced Amber Ale, Horny Honey Amber Ale, Hard Coraline Apple Ale.

A Dangerously Drinkable Artisan Beer Candle

Have you ever wondered if the smell of a craft beer could be just as pleasurable as the smell of a fine red wine? If you aren’t a craft beer drinker, you might be thinking, “Absolutely no.” The maker’s at Barley & Hops Craft Candles are about to change any preconception you might have about the “sniff-ability” of a hand-crafted brew.

No American Lager Beer Candles Here

Beer: Categorically speaking, there is a difference.

For the discerning craft beer lover this is not news to you but for the non-craft beer drinker, we are about to open you up to an entirely new world of amazing scent-sations. Before I started drinking craft beer, I would never even think about taking a sniff…let alone taking a sip! I assumed craft beer wasn’t for the faint of heart. Heck, it took me a very long time to even try an American Lager such as Bud, Coors, Michelob, etc.

Then, I married Brandon. One day he sent me to pick him up some beer for him and his buddies. At the liquor store, there were so many varieties of beer! Beers I had never even heard of! A Stout? What is that? A Hefeweizen? I couldn’t even pronounce that one! (To this day, I still have issues with that one.)

To be safe, I grabbed a 12-pack of Coors Light, a regular in our fridge when I was growing up. When I got home and he saw my selection, you wouldn’t have thought I brought home a dead animal.

This was the day I learned what a GOOD beer was, and wasn’t.

What is an Artisan Beer Candle?

An artisan beer candle starts with a craft beer that has been hand-crafted in a brewery. To quote Wikipedia, this is what they had to say about microbreweries and craft breweries:

A microbrewery or craft brewery is a brewery that produces small amounts of beer, typically much smaller than large-scale corporate breweries, and is independently owned. Such breweries are generally characterized by their emphasis on quality, flavor and brewing technique.

For us, a microbrew is more like an original work of art opposed to a mass-produced print.  An artisan beer candle is better defined as having an “aroma.” An aroma is a combination of flavor and essence. To truly capture the aroma of a craft brew is to not just smell it, but also taste it.

The Flavor and Aroma of an Artisan Craft Beer Candle

OK, this is all great and fine, but what do they smell like???

To help you start your journey into the world of artisan beer candles, I have gathered a few of the most common aromas that can be detected in an artisan beer candle.

• beechwood
• biscotti
• brown sugar
• butter
• chocolate
• vanilla
• citrus
• espresso
• raspberry
• lemon zest
• grapefruit
• honey
• creme brulee
• earthiness
• apple
• tobacco
• spruce
• roasted malt
• toffee
• fresh cream

This list could go on-and-on, but these are just a few of the aromas that we adopt when crafting our artisan beer candles.

Still not convinced that a brew candle is for you? 

We encourage you to read some of the customer reviews left on our individual product pages. You can also check us out on Facebook!

Cheers!

How do you get the names for your beer candles?

This is a question we get hit up with ALL THE TIME! It’s either, “What does this crazy beer label mean?” or “How do you name your candles?”.

Today, I will be telling you the story of how we came up with the name “Angry Bean” for our amazing Vanilla Espresso Porter beer candle.

What’s in a (Beer Candle) Name

The Scent Test

The first craft beer we “scent-matched” was our Vanilla Espresso Porter. For us, starting with a porter or a stout was going to be the easiest and the best received for general consumption. Stouts and Porters tend to have a more coffee or espresso based scent. For the Angry Bean, we used Brekenridge Brewery’s Vanilla Porter as the inspiration. We didn’t try to mimic it’s amazing aroma exactly, simply to get a good feel for this type of brews scent and taste. It is also one of our official brew testers favorites!

For the name, all four of us sit down and do an official sniff and taste test. Just like candles, a craft beer can smell entirely different than how it tastes. If you check out “UnTapped” or “BeerAdvocate” you can read a few of the reviews and see exactly what I mean.

This is how Brekenridge Brewery describes their Vanilla Porter.

“Deep in the jungles of Papua New Guinea and Madagascar grows the perfect ingredient for an extraordinary Porter brewed in Colorado. Breckenridge Brewery’s Vanilla Porter. An ale that has all the chocolate and roasted nut flavor of a classic Porter, with an enigmatic surprise thrown in for good measure.”

For us, obviously, the aroma is paramount in the selection process. If you took the time to read the above description, I am quite certain you can see why we choose the Vanilla Porter for our Angry Bean.

Hi. My Name is Angry Bean.

Next, we had to come up with our own unique beer candle name and label. With this beer candle, Marsha nailed it almost immediately.

“It has to be an angry espresso bean…we all know how people get if they haven’t had their coffee or espresso! Worse even, have you seen those people in the coffee shops that have had TOO much coffee espresso???”

Brilliant! As soon as she shared her vision, I had mine! It HAD to be an angry espresso bean stick figure. Super simple but expressive. To make it even better, I added the red necktie. It is always a good idea when the inspiration comes from “Office Space.”

“Hello Peter, whats happening? Ummm, I’m gonna need you to go ahead come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk… oh oh! I will need you to go ahead and design me a label for that new AWESOME Angry Bean Vanilla Espresso Porter beer candle!”

OK, so I made the last part of that quote up. AND I made the tie red instead of yellow.

Transform Your Microbrew into a Candle

Barley & Hops Craft Candles

Is the merch section of your brewery looking lonely? Are you looking for a unique way to expand upon your brewery branding?

Barley & Hops Craft Candles loves working with breweries & microbreweries.

Why? 

Because we have found a whole new world of untapped aromas & scents that HAVE to be shared, and breweries are our inspiration!

Craft beer & breweries are our inspiration.

Wax is our carrier.

It just so happens that Marsha Flowers is one of the midwest’s most esteemed candle pourers and scent creators. For over 25 years, Marsha has been pouring her unique and addictive scented candles at her little shop called 5B&Co. Candlemakers.

Visitors would come from many miles away to replenish their stock of her amazing candles.

A few years ago, Marsha closed the doors to her Weston, MO location and started pouring from home.

One night, Marsha, her husband Jack, her friend Carrie and her husband Brandon were sitting out on the deck – sharing a mixed bag of craft beers. They had a fantastic variety of IPA’s (Marsha’s fav), Porters, Stouts, Ales and seasonals. Brandon had picked up a Samuel Smith’s Organic Chocolate Stout for us all to share. As soon as the glass hit Marsha’s mouth, she could help but take a whiff.

“This beer smells amazing,” she exclaimed.

Everyone else took a moment to take a sniff. Carrie, graphic designer and web girl for Barley & Hops Craft Candles, agreed wholeheartedly.

Brandon and Jack both agreed that if Marsha could match the aroma of the Organic Chocolate Stout and put it in a candle, craft beer lovers everywhere would rejoice.

So she did. Check-out Big Henry’s Organic Chocolate Stout beer candle.

Brewery Branding for Microbrew Candles

As the night wore on, so did the microbrew sniffing and drinking. It was decided that breweries, microbreweries and cigar shops HAD to come into play somehow, someway.

They got their feet wet by scent-matching a few of the group’s favorites. This is how they got the scents for their core 10 craft beer candles. At our launch party, they were pleased to discover that both women and men LOVED these unique candles!

There were quite a few women that had their reservations, saying “Really? A beer smells good?”

All it took was a few sniffs, and they were convinced.

This was about the time when party-goers began asking them if they could scent-match a beer from their favorite Kansas City brewery. The Torn Label and The Big Rip Breweries came up in conversation multiple times.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks, they found themselves sitting in both above mentioned Kansas City breweries tap rooms, deciding which microbrew they should scent-match! Both breweries thought the idea of scent-matching one of their favorite brews would be the ultimate addition to their brewery branding. We scent-match the beer, slap their label on the side and WA-LA….the perfect unique brewery gift to add to the merch selection!

The idea went over so well, the ladies of Barley & Hops Craft Candles decided to take this idea on the road! Why not create a collection of craft beer scented candles that represent some of the best United States breweries?

Barley & Hops Craft Candles invites local breweries & microbreweries to add their favorite microbrew to the collection! We match the scent, we put your label on it, and you sell it in your breweries merch section!