Woodvar Ages an Award-Winning Pilsner in Willett Oak

Blood Brothers took Bloodvar, the pilsner they describe as award-winning, and aged it on white oak from former Willett bourbon barrels. The result is Woodvar, a 5 percent Bloodtoberfest release with vanilla and oak layered on.

Style: Oak-aged Pilsner
Release Date: 2026-09-25
ABV: 5%
Blood Brothers Brewing (Toronto, ON)

Most barrel programs start with a big beer. Blood Brothers Brewing has put one of its lightest into oak instead.

Woodvar is a 5 percent oak-aged pilsner, and it is not a new recipe. It is Bloodvar, the Toronto brewery's existing pilsner, which Blood Brothers describe as award-winning, given a spell on white oak for this year's Bloodtoberfest. The wood came from former Willett bourbon barrels. The brewery says the aging adds a depth of character that is slightly vanilla, oaky and floral.

Naming the barrel source is a meaningful detail rather than a decorative one. Willett is a Kentucky bourbon producer, and a barrel that has held bourbon carries residual spirit character along with the oak itself. Vanilla is the signature of charred American white oak, and it is the note that comes across most readily in a short aging.

The more interesting decision is the base beer. Barrel character scales against the beer underneath it, and a pilsner offers very little to hide behind. There is no roast, no residual sweetness and no alcoholic weight to absorb the oak, so anything the wood contributes lands in full view against a light body and a dry finish. The floral note the brewery mentions is an unusual thing to get out of a barrel, and on a pilsner it has room to be noticed.

That also explains the restraint implied by the tasting notes. Nothing in the brewery's description points at heavy vanilla or bourbon heat, and on a beer this size that is the outcome to aim for.

Blood Brothers put the reasoning plainly in the release notes:

There are very few things on this good earth that could possibly be better than a fresh Bloodvar - but how about one aged on wood?

Woodvar is available now in 473 mL cans from Blood Brothers Brewing in Toronto, alongside the other three Bloodtoberfest lagers. It is priced slightly above them, at 4.39 dollars a can against 3.99 for the rest.

Editor’s Take

Barrel-aging a pilsner is a genuinely nervy thing to do, and barrel-aging your own award-winning pilsner is nervier still. There is nowhere to hide in a five percent lager. A stout can absorb an enormous amount of oak and bourbon and simply get bigger, but a pils has a couple of gentle malt notes and a clean finish, and if the wood arrives with any weight behind it the beer is over.

So the choice of a former Willett bourbon barrel is doing careful work. What Blood Brothers are reporting back is vanilla, oak and floral character, which is the light end of what bourbon oak offers rather than the caramel-and-heat end. That is a beer aged on wood long enough to pick up the top notes and pulled before the wood starts making demands. The brewery's own line on it is that you can improve on the best, which is a cheerful bit of provocation, and the kind of thing you only write when the beer came back from the barrel the way you hoped.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.