At What Point Does one have TOO many?

Beer is meant to be consumed, not collected.

 

If having too much beer is problem, you need to...

- share with your friends more often
- make some new friends
- be happy that this is the problem that plagues you

Cheers.

 

I've been drinking mine down quite a bit lately. Been nice not spending any new money and I am drinking lots of great beer. Just need to get over the hoarding part of it. There is lots and lots of fresh beer out there for us when we run out!

 

You could definitely be the BA Hero if you posted that sucker somewhere

 

I have around 50 bottles or so in my closet over ~2 years and I think it's a lot. I haven't found an opportune time to open some of them up with my group.

 

I do have it uploaded as a Google doc, but it's currently private. I really don't know why my personal cellar inventory would be of any value to anyone else anyway. But the spreadsheet is pretty simple really. Here are the columns (all sortable):
Brewery / Beer / Style / Quantity / Bottle size (mL) / Bottling date / Best before date / Best after date / Bottle code (if no dates) / Location / Notes
Plus I have a second tab where I save all my reviews. You know, just in case.

 

I do it slightly differently:

Brewery/Beer (size, if multiples)/Vintage/location 1 qty/location 2 qty/.../location 5 qty/sum over locations

I find that makes it easier to have different things in different places. Like, right now I think I have Mother Funker in 4 of the 5 possible spots I store beer (lest you think I'm totally crazy, 2 of those places are at my girlfriend's place).

 

I would store beer at my girlfriend's place, but my wife is already pissed off by how much beer I'm storing here.

 

I have a little over 70. But recently I'm having the same thoughts as you expressed. For various reasons I do not drink as much as I would like to and I noticed that my buying rate starts to exceed my drinking one I do intend to drink those beers eventually, that's the ultimate purpose, but often I wonder when I'll be able to if I keep buying more. Maybe it's just a collector in me that is taking over

 

I think that point is around when you have so many aged beers that need to be drunk soon that you feel guilty about or don't purchase any new or non-cellarable brews. If you have a tasting or three a month and can easily get rid of a dozen, then your number is higher than someone who doesn't have many beer-drinking buddies.

I scroll through my Excel beersheet once a month looking at the purchased or brewed on dates of my beers, and make another sheet with the ones that I think should be consumed within the next month. Then I go collect the bottles and put them somewhere easily accessible so that the next time I want a beer I'll go to the older ones right away.

 

I've got about 25 - 30 cases currently, which includes homebrew and a couple cases of wine. I keep lists on each case of whst's inside and scratch it off when I take something. I gave my own methods of organization which confuses most people but it makes perfect sense to me.

 

Right now I'm at maybe 50-60 bombers and 20-30 singles, and growing.

Each one of them I put in the cellar with dreams of an event that would cause me to rush down there and grab it in order to celebrate.

Lately I've realized that I'm going to either need one hell of a life of greatness ahead of me, or have to learn the ability to celebrate minor strokes of luck in order to drink them down.

'"Welp, I haven't had to replace the dvr in a month... time to crack an Event Horizon"

 

Well said

 

I've been moving toward filling my cellar with gueuze and lambic since I became aware that I have too much beer that isn't going to last a decade.

 

I seriously thought I was the only one who did this.....

 

Along the same lines that others have already replied, I find that when I start running low on space (Of which I have A LOT) I call my friends over and tell them to help me drink my beer. They love getting that kind of text message. For some reason, they always show up. And early too. I can never seem to be able to get them all in one place for anything else except a beer party. Maybe I should start telling them everything is a beer party.

 

"My cat doesn't look as stupid today as she usually does... time for a four year vertical of CBS!"

 

Too much? No such thing! Just be mindful of what you are cellaring. I don't put ANYTHING in the cellar that should be consumed within 6 months, right into the fridge those go, for quick enjoyment. The cellar is for barley wines, old ales, braggots, sours and stouts. Most of those can really stand the test of time.

I use the spreadsheet method as well, although I'm not always so good about keeping up on the in/out beers...that leads to about a 4-5 times per year cellar check up. I AM starting to run out of room soon....a couple of other cellar fiends and I have discussed going in together on a temp controlled storage unit. Bonus for them, their wives won't REALLY know what they are buying lol.

 

I am at around 350 bottles of various sizes in the basement and another 50 or so in my beer fridge. I know it's too much, but I can't stop...

 

One thing I'm concerned with as I start to accumulate a large stack of beers is some going bad. Does anybody have any guidance on how long things last? I obviously know that Sours/Stouts/Barleywines/Old Ales age well, but what type age limit do you put on, say, Beatification? or Cascade Kriek? Is the sky the limit? What about farmhouse ales and saisons like Guava Grove or Fantome Saison?