The freshness craze

You're talking about quite a small sample size that improves with age. Also, it's questionable whether the beers have improved or simply changed. The styles you mentioned certainly withstand changes more heartily than their more delicate cousins. Some even take on more "complexity" or "mellow out". Timing these changes and controlling them is certainly a crapshoot. My point was that for the most part, nearly every beer is best consumed fresh as possible, but a little age doesn't ruin them, and for a select few may welcome some changes.

 

Well, "nearly every beer..." is different from "There is nary a beer...". Perhaps your first post had a bit of hyperbole in it? It's not like THAT is foreign to some of MY posts!

With full recognition of the variable of personal tastes, ...

As I stated above, there are even some IPAs that improve with a week or 2 v. hours old out of the tank. You'll even find such sentiments expressed by the brewers themselves for some IPAs. While hardly considered "aging" a week or 2 is not "fresh as possible."

Your set of "...a select few..." isn't as select or a few as you seem to imply, whether you are talking about beers or BAs who enjoy cellaring.

My experience is if you know what you are doing in terms of beer selection and cellaring conditions, it is not nearly the "crapshoot" you seem to believe it is. Of course, I have been known to "try it and see what happens" with some beers, so, sure, that is a bit of a crapshoot.

 

Let us not forget: Brett and Lacto (and other "bugs") beers require time in the bottle -- and at warm temperatures -- to fully develop to what the brewer intends for them to be. Easy example: Stone Enjoy After.

 

Quite true, I have some bottles of gueuze in the basement that show a "best by" date that is sometimes as much as 20 years after bottling.

 

Rob, another example is Goose Island Sofie.

A couple of years ago I bought two 4-packs (at my 'local' Total Wine & More - Claymont, DE) for the purposes of aging to develop Brett character. I tried the first bottle at around 6 months after the bottling date and there was indeed some Brett character. I then tried 9 months and 12 months and the beer was quite funky then! I still have a couple bottle left which are now 1.5 years old (the bottling date is 2/8/16). I will let these two bottles go to 2 years of age to see how they are then.

I also have a 6-pack of Victory Sour Monkey that I bought this past winter; I will drink these beers over the next couple of years.

Cheers!

 

IPAs rely on hop oils as a major component of the beer's organoleptic qualities. Heat, O2 & UV all collaborate together in attacking a beers flavor profiles. Any beer that relies so heavily on an easily oxidizable compound for flavor etc. it is easy to understand why drinking fresh or soon after packaging has its merit if you're wanting to capture the nuances of the beer's recipe.

 

Im not convinced any beer outside of Stouts or Porters get better with age. I think some Dipas due to the hop combos are affected less, but I've never seen an improvement over fresh. I can't remember a beer I thought was too green. Could be my palate isnt sensitive enough to tell. I left out any other kind of beers because I don't like funk or sour.

 

Barleywines? Wee Heavies?

Bell's Mars (DIPA) is really, really good now with nearly 5 months on it; better than fresh, IMO. I'm keeping what I have left a bit longer to see what transpires (this falls in the "crapshoot" category @CellarGimp mentioned, though...)

 

I haven't had either of those in years to be honest. There was some
Backwoods floating on the shelf but it's not really a style I seek out. I have a friend who likes Hopslam with a year on it, I don't but he does and it's fine. I'm only speaking on the styles I personally drink, I like them as fresh as I can find them. I age my stouts, but I like them fresh too, actually I age them more out of rarity than they're better with age. I like Kbs hot and fresh.

 

@drtth and I have also been aging Sofie, and exchanging notes. I find the the real 'magic' happens at 3 years, so it might be worth a bit more patience on your end.

 

Michael, I will let you know.

Frankly this beer at 1+ years of age has become less enjoyable for me. So far I would say the peak was between 9 - 12 months.

I suppose it would be appropriate to insert the caveat to the BA community of YMMV.

Cheers!

 

Okay, but keep in mind that it doesn't get even funkier. That quality starts to turn floral around 3 years, and that's what I meant by the 'magic'.

 

Fair enough.

I will wait until 3 years since frankly at this point in time I really have no desire to drink these beers.

I shall await the aforementioned magic.

Cheers!

 

Fresh is best for me but I am not too anal about it. They may taste different as they get a little long in the teeth but they still taste good to me. I just love the taste of beer.

 

This is a fallacy. Fermentations that include these microbes are finished when they are bottled. Oxidation and ester hydrolysis are the only things that happen after they are packaged.

 

Everything is better fresh. How much so is a matter of opinion

 

It depends on if said beer is filtered (or centrifuged) and force carbonated or if it is bottled conditioned. Even then, some filtered/centrifuged beer presents a better, more incorporated, flavor profile after it is in the package for a couple weeks. Not every beer has the shelf-instability of NEIPAs.

Agreed.

 

So, you are saying that Brett beers are finished when they are bottled? You are saying that the brewers have kept these beers in their tanks until the brett has fully done its "funky" work on the beer? Therefore, Stone putting out an Enjoy After beer was just a marketing schtick; that beer was fully bretted out and funkified upon bottling?

 

No, not a marketing schtick. This may seem like splitting hairs, but all the phenols (brett character or "funk") and esters that will ever be created are already in the bottle at the time of packaging. Esters break down (or hydrolyze) MUCH faster than do phenols, so over time you will get a beer that is less ester dominant (less fruit forward), less hop forward, and more phenol or "funk" dominant. Make sense?

 

That depends on whether or not they are bottle conditioned.

Also notice that he said "develop in the bottle" not "ferment in the bottle."