Curating a Commercial Beer Cellar

Ask any dedicated beer collector with an even half-decent cellar and they’ll tell you that as a personal hobby, the pastime is challenging enough—space, styles and time can be difficult variables to master. Commercially, the endeavor becomes trickier still. Nevertheless, bars and restaurants not typically known for expansive beer menus are beginning to devote serious space to aged stock. And in an increasingly competitive market, beverage directors and cellar masters must balance their desire to build a standout collection against an economic imperative to satisfy their customers, now. You can’t have your perfectly-aged beer and drink it too.

A few short years ago, building a quality cellar wasn’t a priority for many restaurateurs. Today, the most distinguished commercial collections in the country exist because of the bold vision of Cicerones who sold their investors on the merits of aging beer at a time when the idea seemed somewhat radical.

“Aging beer is a gamble, a real gamble,” admits Cory Lane, operating partner of The Cannibal and Resto in New York City. “I feel that it’s more of a gamble than aging wine because there’s just less information on the topic. I have opened up sours that age great at two years and are almost undrinkable at three.”

Finding that sweet spot requires trial, error and space for inventory, an element that comes at a serious premium in midtown Murray Hill, where Christian Pappanicholas opened Resto in 2007 and The Cannibal in 2010. But after a trip to Belgium, Pappanicholas was determined to make it work, regardless of limitations.

“I had been to Belgium a few times and visited places like The Kulminator,” recalls Pappanicholas. “They have one of the most amazing beer lists, and vintage beer lists in the world. It was an eye opener to what serious aging does to beers. Our decisions for the first four to five years were based around things I have tasted and/or styles that would age well: Sours, Browns, any Trappist beer, Quads and even some things just to see what would happen.”

Using their discerning palates and armed with the knowledge of what styles evolve better than others, Cicerones need to determine what to hold and what can be sold. “When we have an opportunity to get any allocation of beers that we know age well, we put them away until they’re just right,” says Lane. “Often we split them and allow half of an allocation to be sold immediately so our guests have an opportunity to taste the current product or take them home to age them on their own.” (The Cannibal offers off-premise sales.)

At The Monk’s Kettle in San Francisco, co-owner and cellar master Christian Albertson uses a less exacting approach. “When I find particular beers that benefit from aging, I tend to put some aside with each batch that is released to preserve a future vertical,” he explains, referring to the practice of tasting several vintages of a given beer.

Around the same time that Lane and Pappanicholas were getting off the ground, Albertson was on his way to assembling one of the West Coast’s most dynamic beer programs. For him, the first step wasn’t so much the product itself, but the environment in which it would develop. “If not done properly, you are not cellaring beer, but just making it old,” he warns. “Most important is temperature: we cellar everything at a consistent 55 degrees, which is ideal. Warmer temperatures will develop [a beer] faster; inconsistent temperature will wear it out.” Humidity is harder to control and isn’t usually available to the amateur collector—but most important is temperature.

Yet even in such a controlled environment, there’s still a dizzying degree of unpredictability. “Beer doesn’t just get better as you go along but instead rides a roller coaster with peaks and valleys—and the only way to find out where the beer is on that progression is to taste it (and eat into the inventory you have to offer) and if it’s not right, to taste it again later (and eat into the inventory more).”

The process is daunting. And while commercial cellaring continues to expand, proponents like Albertson advocate thoughtful selection. “I used to experiment a lot in the beginning, and put a lot of different things in the cellar,” he says. “In experimenting, I’ve found that most beers are best served when they are released—it was the brewer’s intent that it be consumed soon after release, and if you age it, it is incredibly important that the product you are serving is one that is consistent with the brewer’s intent.” ■