Regret your beer collection?

i started out with lots of higher abv stuff, learned it was a pain to keep them in order. have no regrets on my gueuze/lambics though, 160 or so now, will only grow larger

 

Totally feel the same way!

Maybe if me and u lived closer we could each pop 1-2 beers from our cellar every other day and if we didn't buy any more beer this year we could each get rid of approx 182 bottles in the year and enjoy a ton of great beer before it starts declining more than it has! :-)

 

1) Spend more time drinking.
2) Drink beer. Give rest to local beer aficionados. Move. Set up new cellar.
3) Drink beer quicker.
4) See #3
5) Make more money and/or buy cheaper/less beer.
6) Find a site that revolves around beer and make friends who appreciate good beer.

I kid....but I hear what you're saying. One of the major reasons I want to move is to have a bigger cellar...I think it's a problem now...

 

Sometimes I regret the amount of money I've spent on beer at a certain point Like most things though, moderation is key. When looking for a fridge to purchase as a cellar I went with a mini-fridge. If the beer doesn't fit in the mini fridge or won't be consumed/traded in the next month, I don't buy it. Most of that mini-fridge holds proven winners for aging, ie. Cantillon, 3F, Vintage lambic, and a bottle or two of a rare stout/barley wine. My mini-fridge holds close to 40 bottles so that's usually how many I have outside of what I drink on a regular basis.

 

I will be your friend !!

 

I love mine, nothing better than having friends come over and letting them pick whatever beer they want to drink on special occasions. Like kids in a candy shop. Beer doesn't get my pants in a bunch the way it use to, so its always nice to relieve the days when everything blew my mind through my friends. I keep mine pretty tame though, I think I have about 120 bottles right now. The beer will start to fade after a while,true, but I don't keep anything longer than three years anyway.

 

3. Is a big concern with me. I opened a bottle I've had for two years on Friday and it was definitely past its prime. Have to wonder what else is like that. I know the Bigfoots will be fine, but I am worried about how all those older Brooklyn Choco Stouts and things like that are doing. Even if I drank two 12oz or one big beer per night, it would take a loooonnnng time to get what I consider a somewhat modest cellar down to something more reasonable. I went a bit overboard with buying up until my last move. Actually, my main motivations for slowing down since then have been 2. and 4. Anyway, yeah, for me it's too much and I really hope I don't have too many that are over the hill.

 

I feel exactly the same way as you OP. I've pretty much stopped buying beer until I can get rid of my current inventory. After that I won't amass the bottles again. There are enough great shelf beers these days that I am ok missing the hottest or rarest bottles and complications associated with acquiring and storing them.

 

Agreed. Like I said, I only got 120 bottles- not 1200 bottles. I couldn't possibly imagine having something like that, and would agree I'd really start to question my sanity at that point. That takes some dedication though, and money.

 

Well, if any of your cellar is Belgian Lambic, hit me up and maybe we can work something out to lighten your cellar.

 

I love my collection.. I am really looking forward to drinking/sharing all of it.. I only have about 27 bottles right now. Just by nature of my small beer fridge, I can't fit more than about 30 bottles, so it can't get too out of control.

 

I have found that most beers taste better fresh and very few improve with age. Other than a few lambic i brought back from Brussels and my Black Tuesday vert I drink everything right when I get it.

 

It's a hellovalot easier to get through a corny keg of session beer than it is to get through a gallon of 12% RIS, in my opinion.

 

Six months ago or so I looked at my 250+ bottle cellar and thought that it had become absurd. Other than a few verticals and sours, most of it was unnecessary. So I have slowly drank (?) it down to about 25-40 special, evolving beers; things that should progress over time. Very few bottles were past their prime as they were in the 6-18-24 month old ranges. Many stouts and strong ales and barleywines were peaking - IMO - and I enjoyed all of them. I am sipping on one of those right now - a 20 month old DFH Palo Santo; which is smooth and mellow.

To answer the question; no, I did not regret the endeavour, but I knew I could not maintain it forever. Maybe when I make a but more I can restock and experiment again. But it was a fun trip.

 

I'll answer this question when I have a little bit more time, but this is how I feel currently and look to do. Cheers!

 

I re-read my post before I posted it and I can assure you it isn't intended to be as negative as it looks at first glance.

This is the only one that occasionally frays at the edges of my mind. The majority of my stuff is at my parents place, which is fine as they have a basement. But my younger sibling isn't so young anymore and nearly done with college, therefore may be apt to move out in a few years. When that happens (college is over) my mother will probably quit her job, and my father has already started his job's retirement plan. Long story short, that basement might not be my parents' basement in ten years or less. I expect I will have drunk most of my current cellar down by then, but I will likely have also acquired more beers which are worthless until they are near ten years old (I'm looking at you, J.W. Lees) plus still have a whole bunch in the 3-5 year range. Will be a pain in the ass to move. Unless I have had a good job for a few years at that point, in which case I may be tempted to rent storage space or something similar. Or who knows, have a small house.

The other detractions you mentioned aren't as big of an issue as they might seem, or else I just don't understand the problem:

1) It's more beer than I could ever drink in a reasonable amount of time---.......so drink it later? That's the point of a cellar, right? Certain beers get better later, so you wait till later to drink them. And the several thousand hours of music in my collection is also more than I could expect to listen to in a reasonable time period.

3) A sizable percentage of the bottles I'm opening appear to be declining in quality---it seems I have chosen well, rarely do I have this problem

4) It's utilizing an enormous amount of storage space---I'm not aging hundreds of 750ml bottles of wine or gueuze. I have been aging beer for over 4 years and have never exceeded 130 bottles at any point in time, most of which were 12oz. Try picturing 130 twelve ounce bottles....it sounds like a lot but it looks like it takes up 1/3rd the space of a small bookshelf, right? Pretty much any other hobby/collection I can think of---a musical instrument, comic books, dolls, building computers, tuning up cars/motorcycles, bicycling, painting, reading novels, writing novels, audiophilia/album collections, brewing beer/wine/liquor, collecting wine/liquor---either takes up as much space at a higher cost or takes up more space at higher cost.

5) The money I've spent could have been put towards more important things---like what? Shoes? Fancy shoes still get dog poop on them as easily as cheap shoes. Fancy suits? Same concept, except with food and coffee stains. A second car, or a more expensive car? My car can fit groceries in it, still works and I don't need a Corvette to get me from A to B. I mean, people can prioritize however they want, but I notice people wasting money on more expensive things that don't function any differently all the time, or actually function worse. Not only do I enjoy (most of) my beer cellaring expenses but most can't be replicated any other way, ergo it isn't money wasted. I can't say the same of more expensive "organic" food or supplements that aren't better for you and taste the same, or "all natural" detergent/dish detergent/household cleaner that can't wash away stains and contains proven allergens, or name brand clothes/medicine that is (non-ironically) literally identical to cheaper alternatives. I'm not exempting myself from said criticism (*cough* unnecessarily large glassware collection) but from what I've observed, most people already waste more money on "important things" than they would save by not cellaring beer that can't be replicated by fresh beer.

6) I figured I'd be sharing my cellar with friends but most are not particularly interested---most of my friends are also not particularly interested in the books I read or (especially) a lot of the music I like, and I've known this all along....and I never cared. And I've always known the chances of me meeting a Lovecraft or Tolkien enthusiast were about 1,000 times the chances of me meeting someone else who likes 10-year old barleywine, so.....yeah. Don't know what to say to this one other than that this sucks for you.

 

Just trade quantity for quality. That will solve all the problems on your list entirely

 

I came to this same turning point in my life about a year and half ago. Cellar was getting out of control and some of the beers (most of which were put there early in my cellaring career) were past their prime. Good thing I slowed down considerably and have a good number of friends who are more than happy to help me drink my cellar down. Any time there is a special event or party, I will bring a mixed case of bottles from the cellar and share the goodness. If we don't drink all the beer, I will usually tell people to take the unopened bottles home. Life is too short.