Flavors Lost and Gained by Aging Beer

Yep, the book Vintage Beer goes over this in detail. Perhaps excruciatingly in detail, toward the latter half of the book. It provides you with an example of many beers/style and the flavor loss/gain profile of them each over time.

BTW, I'm not bashing the book, its fantastic.

 

It really varies. Avery's The Czar went from good imp stout to imp stout with underwhelming, muddled fruit flavors in a year. Evil Twin's Lil' B went from intense baltic porter to delicious black cherry dessert in a year. Haven't read Vintage Beer, but I honestly have fun just experimenting and aging trial-and-error style. Not for everyone though, I'd imagine.

 

Also, note that with time the body of the beer tends to thin out a little...maybe not after durations like 1 year, but in general, this is the case.

 

it's fun but it's also frustrating. When you know something was great but that it's past its prime it's easy to think you can draw similar conclusions about comparable beers but as you say, it varies. You know just enough to be dangerous after a few years cellaring. I have been doing it for ten years and still get frustrated when BA convinces me to put away a 6pk of Brown Shugga from Lag only to find it to be overly oxidized a year later. Could be packaging snafus with the new brewery, but I strongly preferred the same beer fresh. Opinions are varied on this subforum on how various beers age!

 

Wow, that beer should not oxidize so much after only a year.

But yes, it sucks when you put beers away and they degrade. I've had it happen a few times, but more often than not I find the change equal or better with what I've cellared.

 

What you will lose or gain depends totally on what beer you are aging. I would highly recommend the Vintage Beer book by Patrick Dawson that was mentioned earlier. I found it fascinating and very helpful in terms of figuring out what I am trying to gain by aging differnent beer (and it only cost $2.99 plus shipping on Amozon - less than any beer!).