Eclipse: Drink now or cellar?

I opened a 2010 Evan Williams a couple weeks ago and it was absolutely incredible. I've had an Eclipse fresh and it was also great.

Moral of the story: Eclipse is a great beer.

But seriously, hanging on to one and drinking it in a year would be a good idea IMO.

 

Drank my brandy barrel Eclipse after a month. Wish I would have waited. Sweet as fuck, luckily I shared the bottle. Wouldn't have been able to drink the whole thing myself...

 

I brought a 2011 Elijah Craig 18 to tasting recently and it was amazing. I have a 2011 EC 12-year in the cellar I'm going to save for at least another 6 to 9 months.

 

I generally don't think most beers improve with age. Eclipse is no exception. It will hold up, but in my experience, it hits a wall around 2 years and starts to decline thereafter.

I found that '08 PvW peaked in Dec. 2010, and the '09 Eclipses (which came out in early 2010) hit their peak 5 months ago. I can't say how the '10s are doing, as I started drinking them all down once I noticed the pattern for the first two years.

They're meant to be ready upon release. Drink up fresh.

 

What he said for sure...don't sit on them very long OP. If you'd like the barrel character a bit more rounded about a year is good but more than that is not worth it if you ask me.

 

Never drank an Eclipse that lost its barrel vibe. Been drinking 'em for about 4 years now.

This stuff is sooo subjective. Example:

Maybe 2 weeks ago, myself, the girl in the avatar & Corpulent drank a 2 year old bottle of Southern Tier Oat. It wasn't very good. Southern Tier makes some excellent beer, so I got worried, "oh no, my stouts are aging poorly in this environment, better make a conscious effort to drink all my 2 year old + stouts asap."

So Saturday night me and Corpulent pop a 2+ year old bottle of barrel aged Great Lakes Blackout Stout, bc I'm worried my beer is turning to shit.

The -bal blackout stout was amazing. Just amazing. Where was it stored? In the adjacent spot next to the Oat.

And please, don't bother to point out one is barrel aged and one isnt. . . although if you have thoughts as to why one would age better than the other (other than one tastes subjectively better), fire away.

Anyways, my advice, if you have 2 bottles, drink one in a year. If its awesome, wait on the other one for 2 more years and see what happens. Or, since you love 'em now, drink 'em now. Only you will know what you like most.

 

Dude, BA Blackout is the aging champ for me. Period. That beer with 2-3 years is as close to perfect as a beer gets.

And I hear you on the generalizations, & the Eclipses are no different. The '10 Evan Williams has held up great; in my opinion, the '10 Rye has already lost a step, so for some reason, even the same brewery BA beers are holding up differently from different barrels. That said, the '11 Elijah Craig's are stunning already, so I can't see much benefit in aging them, other than to drink it again a few months out.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that it's impossible to compare something you're drinking now to something you drank 2 years ago in any meaningful way. Memory is hilariously fallible.

 

'11 EC 18 and the '11 EC 12 were the best tasting so far fresh and aging would not help them out much. But the one this year which i have tasted from the start and is starting to really open up is the '11 Grand Cru and is almost tasting better than the EC 18. But consistency between all of the bottles of every eclipse to me has always varied even opening ones that the bottle numbers are close the taste in some of them vary. Opened the '10 evan williams and it tasted a lot better with some age than fresh. The ones i am going to sit on are the '11 rittenhouse (greenwax) and the brandy (burgundywax) they were hot in taste from all of the bourbon/brandy barrels and would like that to mild down with age. While the rest of the 2011s were tasting good fresh and still are tasting good now.

 

Unless of course you take notes.

 

I'm not really convinced notes are any better. You never know how much you might have changed random things over the years, such as how you use certain words (let alone perceptual differences, which can vary day-to-day in addition to drifting long-term).

 

I wouldn't say it's impossible though and it's better than not taking notes and comparing from memory. Otherwise, why age stuff at all?

 

Sure, it's better, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's good. I basically trust my ability to compare these things through time, in the same way that I basically trust that events I remember basically happened as I remember them, but there's not really a good reason for that. It's more that the alternative is annoying. But because I'm aware of how fallible memory is I'm going to take statements about when things peak etc. with an enormous grain of salt.

As far as aging, good question, I'm incredibly bearish on aging too. I think in the vast majority of cases your best result is "not negative". But some things (lambics, mostly) definitely evolve in interesting ways (at least, I think they do, who knows!). So the giant grain of salt above isn't problematic, as I intentionally age pretty much nothing (now, accidental aging because I have more beer than I can drink, that I do plenty of).

 

That's where I'm at too for the most part...but I at least try to have something fresh before I stick it in the cellar for (accidental or intentional aging) and when I do drink it fresh, I try to review it giving me *something* to go back on to compare - but your point about the giant grain of salt is not without merit and should always be considered when reading people's opinions on how stuff is drinking.

 

Overlord's "How's it drinking now" flowchart is a must when valuing opinions on peaking/fading aged beers.

Basically:
Do you have lots of bottles still available to trade? Yes, its drinking great.
No bottles left? No, its peaked and/or fading.

 

I second this. I had an '09 Elijah Craig about....6ish months ago...it was spectacular...better than the PvW Eclipse I had about a month before. I think the '09 EC I had about 6 months ago had improved...smoothed out some, than when I had it at about 6 months old (though it was still great then).

 

Sorry, but I don't understand how an anecdote about two different beers from different breweries aging differently relates to my experience of drinking multiple bottles of the same beer over a period of time and tracking their progress. I'm not claiming to be an absolute authority, but my experience is certainly worth sharing. Most of my tasting group has purchased about 2-3 cases of Eclipse each year, apiece. Those bottles get shared frequently. Of course things are subjective, but our experience isn't meaningless.

As stupac2 points out, palates change, memories change, but certain impressions are strong enough that they persist. To say that the flavors don't pop like they used to, the coconut has faded, the alcohol has calmed -- these may drift to some degree, but they're not completely meaningless statements. I'd say mapping people's personal palates onto a beer is a much bigger variable. And of course, bottle variation. I've consumed probably a case of Elijah Craig 18 Eclipse this year, and the scores I would give each bottle are a scatter plot.

Hehe, I love that one.

 

"Arbitrator, post: 138717, member: 271249"]Sorry, but I don't understand how an anecdote about two different beers from different breweries aging differently relates to my experience of drinking multiple bottles of the same beer over a period of time and tracking their progress

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I agree, . . . and never said otherwise? Just different? Its pretty much what I was getting at when I said how subjective this stuff was (and then laid out how different it was for me, i.e. so consistent; good). I really like & trust your beer reviews and objectivity when reviewing beers, that's why I kinda juxtapositioned our points to show how subjective it is.

I just wanted to belong . . . (Cletus voice in that one episode w/ the bear).

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holy god i actually want to ask todd to disable the quote feature on your posting.