EXTRA! Jean Van Roy recommends aging lambic in variable 50F-70F (summer/winter) cellar temps

When he says the harvests weren't very good I"m assuming he means the output of cherries rather than quality. I don't think he'd make a beer with inferior ingredients.

 

I've already been practicing and preaching this, so it is good to get some validation. Too many folks who have never brewed beer for extended periods of time (years) weighing in on what is/isn't good for a beer. Not trying to be snarky here, but getting beer aging advice from someone who has never brewed, or never advanced past the extract phase (not knocking it, just stating there is a progression of involvement), is like getting parenting advice from someone who has had limited exposure to kids. The technical know-how of the subject just isn't there.

 

Awesome, those temps are almost bang on to where I age my beer throughout the yr (still wish I had a bomb shelter though)

 

analogy is very strange. giving *brewing* advice without brewing is like giving parenting advice when you have limited exposure to kids.

a lot of non-brewers have extensive experience with aging, and extensive knowledge of chemistry. would not some yahoo who's brewed session beers for 20 years giving them advice be like getting parenting advice from someone who has limited experience with kids?

re: aging cantillon, obviously the rules are different than for aging stouts and such. not that there are any rules in the first place, but still. if JVR says heat it up, why not?

 

Nope, I think it is appropriate, especially given the time and effort gone into each batch over the years. Perhaps cooking would resonate better? A chef knows better about how long and at what temperatures a given dish needs over a guy who only orders out?

 

Well done, without even trying -- THAT'S a pro for ya. Re-imagining what you might be saying without pulling more rank than necessary, I'll read this to mean that in your long experience of brewing over many years, you also find that variation in temperature doesn't affect your results much. Which is very useful input, and appreciated. My current cellar is only a little below grade and not as ideal, so I'm glad to hear it.

 

the 2008 LPK may be the best kriek my lips have ever touched. wait, it was the best

 

haha could not agree more. 07 was funky and oaky. 08 was grandmas cherry pie

 

Thanks? I don't know everything, but I do know that temperature variation in bottle aging has little to no effect on a beer in the temp ranges described above. So many folks are quick to write off a beer aged at 60 or 70 without understanding the processes. Keeping a beer in a fridge merely preserves the beer and doesn't allow the yeast/bacteria to evolve and add flavors to the beer over time.

Don't worry about your cellar man, anything that keeps out light and doesn't get too cooking hot or freezing cold will work just fine. I look at it this way- folks hundreds of years ago were storing beer and wine without refrigeration, just storing them out of the way where they won't get bothered on a daily basis. The notion that beer/wine needs to be refrigerated is a modern concept from within the last 60 years or so.**

**granted we don't really know if beer and wine from hundreds of years ago was very good, but they kept drinking it up til now, so it couldn't have been far off from today I would imagine.