Westy 12 Questions

Not a decent deal. $50 for two westy XII is outrageous. Not that plenty of people wouldn't pay it at least once.

 

You can spend your money however you want, but the only way beer consumers can prevent stores from doing stuff like that is to spend their money elsewhere. Buying the beer at jacked up prices only encourages those business practices.

Plus, if they are willing to sell grey or black market beer, what else are they willing to do to maximize their profits from their customers?

 

1. See draheim's post above.
2. $25 in semi-hard to find beer
3. If you plan on drinking it within the year, you might as well just put it in the fridge. If you plan on cellaring it, probably be worth the effort to find someone with a proper cellar to hold it for you. I keep all of my long term cellaring beers at my brother's house because he has a basement that stays between 50 and 60 degrees all year.
Also, take note of digita7693's post above. This is a complex beer that reveals its depth as it warms. Cheers and enjoy it.

 

Pliny will be around forever. You can order it online.
Drink and or cellar. Do you have a family member with a semi-controlled temperature house or basement? Put it there, in a box. out of sight, out of mind. That's the best way to cellar—get it the hell away from you so you can't just randomly drink it.

 

I realize this is outside the scope of this thread, but you can get a small counter-top wine cooler/cellar for not much more than you dropped on those two bottles, and those are very NYC-apartment friendly. I would recommend considering it, because chances are this isn't going to be your last "special occasion" beer!

 

it's not good to store/cellar beers in your fridge, because of high humidity. Drink one and keep one in your closet.

 

I may be off, but wouldn't a fridge tend to be a more low humidity environment due to forced air for cooling? So I think you meant the opposite of what you said. It is more humid in your closet so that is why it is a better option over the low humidity of the fridge.

 

LOL

 

Are they blank bottles, or brick bottles that say XII on the side? Because the real stuff is significantly better than the brick version. For future reference, you can order bottles of the real stuff from Belgium for significantly less than $25/bottle, even after shipping.

 

Interesting, I've never heard that the beer was different. Do you have a source for that?

 

My own palate, and the palate of my brother-in-law, who has also had both. I think a lot of other people have said they also think it tastes different. It's not a different beer, necessarily, but it is likely that it is the same recipe made differently. The two most likely culprits are that it was brewed on a different system, or not aged the same amount of time before selling. Based on volume alone it is very unlikely that the brick bottles were made at the St. Sixtus Abbey.

 

Where from? Website wise that is. Can you find Westy in Ohio?

 

Belgium in a box, Etre Gourmet, and Trappist World, to name a few. Finding Westy anywhere outside of Belgium is extremely difficult. Any shop in the U.S. selling it likely had it shipped or muled from Belgium, and is probably selling it illegally.

 

As opposed to the legal sales from the aforementioned sites?

 

I would guess that the brick boxes were not received as well since just because they were relatively fresh, and probably most of the bottles others in the US had reviewed previously from Belgium were on average older. Especially since this is a beer style well known to improve with age.

 

Westvleteren has supposedly increased production, and were supposedly not running at full capacity before anyway, so it's not an outlandish idea that they would just turn the taps on a bit longer when needed to fund new projects and such. Anyway, if your idea of a special occasion is less than a few years into the future, a dark room is probably OK. But if you fridge it, take it out a good while before you crack it -- room temperature would be better than fridge. Cellar temp would be an OK starting point. Actually, let me rephrase -- I hope you enjoy it under whatever conditions you can come up with. If it doesn't get a lot of exposure to fridge light or temp changes, I would imagine that 4-6 years is ideal. Or at least it was for me and my cellar.