How much cellared beer is too much?

Depends on style.. Ive tried to tame my own down, yet im still sittin at around 240 bottles in the cellar.. Thats after reinventoring and pulling about 3cases in my beer fridge... Yet, if it gets to the point when beer goes bad, thats a point whre youve gone too far i think.. I do try and bring a couple bottles to work to share out at work tho

 

Even though I take beers to tastings, gatherings, pop bottles when I have people over etc I always seem to have way more beer than I can drink....I'll be honest, I'd rather not cellar at all, as the majority of beers don't benefit from age, and it takes up space, but I just can't consume all this.

 

There also the fact that any of us might die at any given time and what good will all that damn beer be then?

 

I usually try to clear most of my cellar out in the summers. The winter season seems to bring a lot of rares and stouts to the point that i cant drink them as fast as theyre being released. I go through every few months to make sure there are no best by dates or styles that dont belong. But some stuff will stay down there for a while. Have a lot of barleywines, sours, and belgians that can last a while and some Westy 12 that Ive already marked off for special occasions. Mine is under my stairs and temp controlled between 62-66. So it all depends on how.much room you have and how accurate you can keep the temps, but a simple answer would be that there is no such thing as too much cellared beer, imo

 

Oh God, if I were to die right now I would be so screwed, who the hell would drink all of my brews in my cellar? My cat? Well at least the booze for the wake would be taken care of!

 

I have about 80 bottles in mine. I have not been cellaring as often because I tend to like them fresh these days. Also, my cellar is in the crawl space of my house and I have to empty the utility closet to get to them. Which makes me less likely to get something out. I think that I have too much in there now. Based on all this I would think one or two 12 bottle cases would be enough. I want to brew more often this year anyway so there is that as well.

 

You can put me as executor of your will....payment is "all beer left in cellar" ....I would be willing to do that for a fellow BA...that's how we roll :-)

 

I have 100 bottles and I do think some regular brews benefit heavily from aging, even if it is just to have a unique beer experience by doing a vertical or just seeing what flavors diminish or are highlighted after the tincture of time.

 

I have about 30 and feel I'm overloaded. About a dozen get better with age. Problem is that some were hard to get (and I won't get again), that I feel like I need a special occasion to bust it open. I'm starting to realize that it's just beer, go ahead and drink it. Starting this Easter Sunday afternoon with my one and only Intuition Underdark

 

If you have to ask how much is too much, then you probably have too much.

 

I cellar exactly zero beers. I buy the beer, I drink the beer ... as soon as possible.

 

519 bottles is the ceiling of the "'reasonable' cache" range. Over that, and you've gone too far.

 

I have somewhere in the vicinity of 25 cases of various beers in my cellar, plus another 10 or so of homebrew. I keep meaning to start making a dent in there, but it seems to multiply faster than I drink it... especially rares.

 

Can't say I really have that problem. In my fridge right now I have a sixer of Mirror Pond Ale, my last Red Chair, and my last Sucks. Running low though, I usually have around 20 to 30 assorted bottles in the fridge. Anything more than that, and i'd be seriously pushing my financial limits. That said, I'm pretty jealous of some of you...

 

I too have a problem.

 

Meh. I'm sure there are people here with ridiculous collections. I think "too much" is subjective, but personally I would say too much is when you have so many beers that you can't reasonably consume it before some of the beer has gone downhill. I was at that point, had over 1000 beers in the cellar. I made it a mission to consume them all over the course of three years (roughly 1 a day + incoming new stuff). I don't think I'm going to make it, it's been almost two years and I've had 800 of them but I still have 300-350 left (since incoming added some to the total). I gave away 100 at one point and traded larger quantities for smaller quantities several times as well, to knock down the count.

It will be close I think. I think I was sort of straddling the line, I would say 5% of the beers that I have drank so far had gone bad (drainpour), which isn't bad considering some of it was "unintentionally cellared" for around 5 years. I tried to be smart and drink the lighter beers first, saving the big stouts and barleywines for last and it has served me fairly well. I'm hoping to get through the remaining "unique" beers to review in the next few months, leaving the remaining 200-250 beers as beers I have already reviewed and are being specifically cellared in a temp controlled upright-freezer (on purpose). Those I will consume as I see fit over a longer period of time.

Long story short, don't let your cellar grow to the point that you're letting good beer go bad. I have found that the vast majority of beer out there does not get better with age. I've had lots of fresh and aged versions and I would say at LEAST 75% stays about the same or gets worse. Even some of the biggest stouts did not age well (recently had a 3 year old Uinta Labyrinth [13% ABV+] that was completely oxidized and a drainpour. Most of the beers that got better are some of the typical staple stouts/barleywines and such, like old raspy, bigfoot, old stock ale, FIS, 120min, expedition, etc.

Dope

 

Never....enough....beer...<tripping over boxes in stairwell>.