Newbie craft beer lover with some questions

Good questions. Actually, this site has some good info for you.

Go back to the home page and you'll see links for beer styles. You'll find good info on glass styles per type of beer, as well as recommendations on cellaring.

In short, anything can be drank from a pint glass though other types are more specific to the beer. The darker the beer, the longer it can be aged.

Keep us posted with your other questions and you'll get good feedback.

 

Oops...i said beer styles. I meant beer 101.

 

Also, there is a Cellaring sub-forum filled with plenty of great suggestions and ideas.

http://beeradvocate.com/community/forums/cellaring-aging-beer.41/

 

Here's a few links for a set of affordable glassware:

http://www.amazon.com/Libbey-80681-...8&qid=1341462768&sr=8-5&keywords=beer+glasses

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?SKU=18465779

http://www.amazon.com/Spiegelau-Bee...8&qid=1341462768&sr=8-3&keywords=beer+glasses

 

Darker the beer the better for aging is true. Best styles to do it with are Imperial stouts, Belgian quads, Belgian strong dark ales, dubbels, old ales, barley wines and probly a few more. And not just 2 years, some can be up to 5 years or longer.

 

A good German mug, a pils glass and a WalMart Pint glass will suit your needs just fine. You can branch out, later from there. Acquiring glassware is one of the cooler things about drinking beer.

 

For glasses check here sometimes some awesome deals http://pubglasses.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=PG

 

A tulip glass is a must for any collection. The Duvel tulip glass is pretty common. That and a pint glass would be a good start. Other glasses you can include as you get into more styles would be a goblet, pilsner flute, snifter, weizen glass. Heck why not a stein as well. I'm probably missing a few more but all those would probably be enough to cover many styles.

Edit: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/glassware is a great page to look at. Check it out.

 

The shelf length of beers will also depend on the style. Something like a barleywine should be stored and will improve with age. Something like an IPA/IIPA (hop heavy) will not improve with age.

 

"The other question I had is about how long beer can be kept."

Can't help ya there. The beer I buy never seems to last very long at my place.

 

Sorry guys, but that is completely wrong. The color of the beer has nothing to do with its aging potential.

What to age depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

High alcohol things like imperial stouts, English baleywines, and old ales age well because they can often be too strong at first, so people like to see how they change and mellow out over the years. In my experience, two years is the best time to drink an aged stout, but there are exceptions that have tasted great with up to five years on them.

Then there are low alcohol things like lambics and gueuzes that are aged to see how the flavors change over the years. Do they get more funky, more tart, more acetic? These are not dark beers, but they can be aged for 20+ years!

 

Go to the thrift store and you can probably find a tulip, pint glass, and large (20-ish oz) brandy snifter for less than a buck total. That's really all you need. I enjoy collecting different shapes of glasses from breweries I visit, but those 3 are the only real "essentials" IMO. I mainly use the regular pints because they're easier to clean if you should forget to rinse them, which I do quite frequently.

 

I know one thing:
Don't age IPAs!

I got some special "stout" glasses, and a goblet for Belgians.
Honestly I don't notice any difference in flavor, but I can smell the beer a bit better than when it's in a normal pint glass.
Plus it it looks cooler to drink from a goblet, I just need a gilded one now.

 

I'm going to agree with Steeeve

I have a Pint, and a snifter and that was really all I was worried about at first. Both of which came from a dollar store. I've collected a few different styles such as a an English Pint Glass (Guinness glass), and a wheat beer glass (Franziskaner). Along with more pints and more snifters. Helps to make friends with bartenders and get to take glasses that have chipped bottoms.

 

It would also be in your best beer drinking interests to learn about bottle dating, especially for hop forward beers. There's a good deal of outdated beer out there and if you try one of them, you may get the wrong idea of what the beer should taste like.

 

If you are interested in beer, I suggest you buy this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Tasting-Beer-..._B001JPCB52_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341510598&sr=1-1


It is well worth the $11.

 

I agree completely with what dvelcich has laid out here--not a function of dark v. light, but instead alcohol content and hop presence. Many stouts and porters are in the 5% range and are not suitable for keeping for long periods of time. Still, they can be kept under dark and cool conditions for 6-12 months (but pay attention to that bottling date to see how much of that time has already passed). Anything with a high hop character will see that character dissipate with time, not to the point that it is 'undrinkable' as some here will no doubt tell you, but just to a different level (and possibly not what the brewer intended).
Keeping beer sometimes for months is something most of us do. Aging beer intentionally for the purposes that dvelcich illuminates is different completely. Personally, I wouldn't try to age anything that is under 8% abv.

 

I have a bunch of glassware but mostly use a 10oz goblet, a 9oz Pilsener glass and a straight pint glass. I use my tulip for Tripels and my wheat glass for most wheat beers (not Wits though), but those 3 cover 95% of my drinking. Cheers and welcome aboard!