"Cellarable" beers you wish you never cellared?

BCBCS is 1,000x better fresh, in my humble opinion.

 

I just had a 2012 Double DBA and it was better than fresh

 

Agreed. That beer will haunt me for the rest of my life. Incredible.

 

Most high abv and barrel aged beers... They may not get worse but they often don't get better. Palates need to learn to handle the stronger beers or just stick to lighter fare. Funny when people complain about a 15% barrel aged stout being "too hot." Well duh.

 

To me, Fruet got better and better with age (I wish I hadn't recently drank my last bottle).

I guess most will not agree, but Rare sucked after a few years in the bottle

 

Fairly recently held a full vertical BCBS tasting, '05-'13 with the variants, and while I don't regret cellaring them, it seemed pretty clear to everyone there that 4-5 years was the sweet spot. No point in going beyond that. And the benefits from aging to the 4-5 year mark, while apparent, weren't totally-blown-mind amazing. Definitely wouldn't mind just drinking them fresh each year.

That said, interestingly enough, the Rare was uniformly determined to be the best beer at the tasting. There were a number of people there who are not at all into craft beer and had no association with Rare who shared this opinion (so not really blind tasting per se, but certainly a more neutral opinion). So aged Rare universally loved, but of course that's not to say it's better than it was fresh.

Agreed with whoever said that BA FW beers don't age well - they are great when fresh.

I've been loving Fruet, but interestingly not sure I'm enjoying what's going on with Bois. Maybe it's because Fruet and Sucre are both intensely smooth and rich by comparison, but there's some mild tartness (not infection-type, I suspect from the solera-induced oxidation) in Bois that I don't love.

And I know this is going to be unpopular, but I recently opened an Armand & Tomme that, while tasty, might as well have been a Cantillon Classic. Having had A&T and been blown away by it at the official release in Copenhagen, it seems age has not done anything special for it.

 

This is a ridiculous and absurd statement. There are plenty of beers at 15%+ where the alcohol is hidden masterfully, perhaps a light warming sensation as it goes down, but nothing like "heat" from alcohol that just burns as you smell and/or taste it. As such, a complaint about a beer being "too hot" is completely warranted, it's a significant detracting factor for me.

 

Fair enough, and I actually agree - on occasion. My new found love of Bourbon in general has, I think, raised my alcohol burn threshold a good deal over the past year or so to the point where I don't mind a "hot" beer much anymore, as long as it's not stylistically inappropriate.

 

I started a vertical of Expedition and recently tried 2011-2013. The fresh beer is so amazing and complex, so many more flavors come through. Even after 1 year it had mellowed out so much and really lost its punch. I still have 2 of the same verticals going and need to decide what to do with them.

Also did a 2013 to 2014 KBS comparison and I pretty much knew better, but I had to try it. Will be cranking through the rest of my 2014 bottles immediately.