Beer freshness depending on style

And I do since some beers (albeit a limited set of beer styles) improve with age. Some examples are Quads, Imperial Stouts, Barleywines,...

Cheers!

 

Quite true, but on the other hand, I'll know in advance there will be some quite nice beer on hand to be appreciated by those who take part in my wake.

 

I have a handful of those, plus I've recently added GI Sofie to the box.

 

In general terms, heavier beers tend to not be as age sensitive as lighter styles. Hence, stouts, old ales and others can improve with age or at least withstand aging better. Lighter styles also tend to be more hop dependent in contrast. That said, I always try and consume the lighter styles as fresh as possible.

 

People say this stuff all the time. Simple if you like to see what happens hold onto one beer from a 6 pack,(experimentation will go a long way). IF you are buying stuff that you already know is old. Personally I would say stick to beers over 9%-10% roughly.

Most wheat, browns, pilsners, and Ambers. Wont do well with age.
I would stay away from aging fruited beers unless they are sours.

I would look for. Quads, Dark ale, Stong Ales, Saisons, American Wild, Lambic, Gueze, Flanders, Flemish, Braggot, Porters (high abv) BA/non Ba, Imperial Stouts, Scotch Ales, Barley Wines.

 

Sofie is good one to age and the older vintages use to have the year on the bottles. I cant recall if the 14' and 15' do though.

 

Yeah, they still do. The ones I put away are 14s that I stumbled upon last year.

 

Hmmm? What wheat wine has a conservative best by date? Let me think.

It's insane that if this was another IPA freshness thread, we'd be up to page 4 right now with re-hashed opinions... and here we have a question about any other style and it's crickets chirping by comparison.

Regarding my comment of generalities over rules, I've had imperial stouts, "scotch ales," and barley wines that were terrible with age... and I've also had low ABV ales that tasted great with age. Most recently, I had a 5.9% brown ale with a few years on it that was wonderful. You could taste the age on it for sure, but in this particular case, with this particular beer, I enjoyed it tremendously. I'm not going to start buying other old brown ales, but if I see this one again I will buy it. If I do have it again, I might find myself less forgiving the second time around.

I think my comments above are somewhat off topic though. I don't think this discussion is about beers with years on them - there's another forum for that. I'm assuming the OP is asking about a much narrower timeframe.

 

@LennyOvies , when I was beer shopping in Mexico... the average European import was pretty old (average, but not all) and most of the Mexican "craft" beers didn't have dates (if I remember correctly). Is this accurate with your area too?

 

I've had a few BSDA with some years on them and they weren't great either. I believe it comes down to each person's own tastes. The brew also has a lot to do with it. I've had a 4 month old IPA that tasted better than a 5 day old IPA.

 

Back to the topic of beer styles and freshness timeframes, IMO Belgian Trappist/Abbey style ales can last a very long time (e.g., years). I once had a mixed case of La Trappe beers (Dubbel, Tripel, Quad) and those bottles had best by dates of several years from the brew date. If you find a Chimay that is not super fresh you should still feel comfortable buying those beer since they are 'good' for a long time.

Cheers!

 

Bottle conditioned beers are generally going to hold a good bit longer than some of the other beers. If the beer has a big old ring of yeast on the bottom, it's likely going to have some good preservation qualities in it.

But if it shows little to no yeast then its likely a highly centrifuged, beer with very little residual yeast, or not much added yeast at the date of bottling. Those beers generally fade faster. Of course this is only a generalization but holds somewhat true, but not all the time...sort of like a politician on Super Tuesday

 

Paired with:

i think gives a clearer picture.

 

Have you ever perceived a ribes aroma in beer (peaks at around 3 months according to the graph)?

Cheers!

 

To be honest i haven't done a complete full 26 week or even a 182 day sensory test to be sure. Im also not sure id be able to distinguish between fading hops and the increase of the malt presence to get any ribe-like leaves smell.
But sounds pretty fun to do a daily or weekly sensory test.

*As ive looked closer at this graph and the source graph im not sure of the values on the X and Y axes are valid, this is the adapted graph and the original has no values on either axes. So ribes could come in at 3 months or it could much longer for their presence to show.

 

The first time I saw this graph was in the paper of: “The chemistry of beer aging – a critical review” by Bart Vanderhaegen , Hedwig Neven, Hubert Verachtert, Guy Derdelinckx.

In that paper there were no values on either the x axis or y axis. I have seen the graph you posted but I was always a bit suspicious of the values that were added to the axes. Because of that I am personally reluctant to post the specific graph you posted.

Regardless of the x axis values I have never noticed the aspect of ribes aroma indicated in this graph. FWIW I do agree with the ‘trends’ indicated by the other aspects:

· Bitterness will decrease with age

· Sweet (honey-like) flavors will develop with age

· Cardboard (2-Noneal) will develop with age

Cheers!

 

Did you follow along with the Bigfoot tasting last weekend? I did a 2013, and the aroma hops had degraded to a character that I would describe as "dry old Christmas tree", but who knows, it may have been catty as well. In any event, it seemed like that vintage was on it's way, but not fully 'there' yet because that aroma hadn't faded yet.

 

Michael, I did not follow the Bigfoot tasting.

It would seem to me that if that graph was completely accurate the increase of ribes aroma would not be a 'unique' thing; it seems a person should notice this in a number of beers. Why I have never noticed this aspect (and I have drank a lot of 'old' beers) makes me suspect of this particular curve in that graph.

Cheers!

 

Upon further review, my Miller handbook says that this aroma is the result of mercapto pentanones due to oxidation. Some quick googling advises reduced headspace to avoid the problem. This leads me to believe that it's a rare problem limited to lines without quality packaging procedures. It's likely even more rare in bottle conditioned beers- so no wonder you never ran across it.

I do recall a kegger in my long lost past where we had to exchange a bad keg of Budweiser with the store because everybody there agreed that the beer was 'rancid'. This may be the sort of thing he is describing- not quite 'skunky' and more vegetal in nature. Obviously an old keg. (it's strange the things that stay in the memory banks...).