December 16 Cellar Reviews

2013 Stone Old Guardian 22oz

Pours murky honey with amber hints, decent head with a nice lingering cap of lacing. Smells of coffee, English toffee, and faded florals. Taste is bitter coffee, almond roca, brown sugar,with notes of chocolate and honey. Mouthfeel is thick and smooth, carbonation is perfectly balanced. A nice 3 year old barleywine that could go longer.

 

Rochefort 10, bottled August 2010. Best by date of 180815

So 6+ years old. Very dark brown, cream colored head,good head retention. great aroma of toffee, plum, raisin. neither sweet nor dry. smooth carbonation, soft mouthfeel. overall very tasty.

 

2010 corsendonk Christmas ale
Picked up a number of these for $6 after the season that year and this is the last of the batch. Has lost a lot of the complexity that it has when fresh. Tastes mostly of raisin. Resembles a sweet brown ale, slight bitterness. Not horrible but will always be drinking this fresh in the future.

 

2015 Brown Shugga'

This was a fun experiment that I had at a family gathering where we had a side by side of 2015 and 2016 Brown Shugga'. Only one member of the family was aware of which beer was poured into which glass. They let us know which was which after guessing.

The 2016 was noticeably darker with less head retention and clarity compared to the 2015. Not sure how the beer could change so much in color.
2015's aroma was overpowered by musty hops which is a huge turnoff for me. 2016 was much brighter with a piney hop nose.
The flavor profile was wildly different between the two. 2015 was very reminiscent of an aged American Barleywine, sweet with a bit of hop presence left over but not pine. While the 2016 had much more piney and stinging hops, but finished with some syrupy sweetness.

Overall I prefer this beer fresh, but 6 others at the party preferred the cellared version. Worth noting that the ABV was different on each vintage. The 2015 was 9.8% and the 2016 was 9.7%. I wonder if this was due to a recipe change.

 

2014 Jack's Abby Coffee Barrel Aged Framinghammer

When I had this fresh, I thought there was just too much going on between the bourbon barrel and the coffee. Close to three years in now, the coffee is basically gone. What remains is a nice chocolate and brown sugar baltic porter, with just a touch of bourbon. Some cherry-raspberry fruit emerges as it warms. The coffee might be gone, but no soy sauce or cardboard or any other signs that this has gone too long are present, so if you happen to have any Framinghammers of this vintage, feel free to let them keep going.

Having had some experience with other Framinghammer variants in the meantime though, I'd say the adjunct versions are best relatively fresh. Some (Cocoa-nut) have been amazing on day one, others (PB&J) have been better in the six to twelve month range once they've had a chance to settle down a bit. The Framinghammer base itself though seems capable of going quite a distance.

 

White oak from the bruery
Purchased mid 2012

Drank one at the time I bought it and this second bottle was saved until now.

This has held up rather well. Still had a nice pop of carbonation when opened. Smells of sweet malts, light barrel/vanilla/coconut.
Tastes has some apple blended well with the vanilla from the barrel, little bit of spice/yeast and alcohol at the end. Carbonation still lively.

Overall I am rather pleased with how this turned out. It still has some of the negatives it did when fresh- the sweetness and alcohol combined with the large bottle make the somewhat difficult to drink all in one setting. I opened this yesterday and recapped it and it's still tasting just as good as it did yesterday.
3.75/5

 

I've decided to do a bit of purging, so got a few to add. They won't be super-detailed, but hopefully a guideline for anyone with similar styles of the same age or even the same year of the beer.

Pipeworks Barrel-Aged Last Kiss (2013): Still heavily bourbon-forward, which I loved about it. Great mouthfeel, easy drinker. Excellent beer.

Great Divide Hibernation Ale (2015): We did this side-by-side with this year's beer. 2-0 preferred the aged. It just seemed like a fuller, better beer.

Blue Lobster Celtic New Year (2013): This long-retired beer from a long-gone brewery was phenomenal. I kept coming back to one thing: Tastes like a really well done plum wine. Dark fruits, no bitterness. Excellent share.

Alesmith Old Numbskull (2014): On the exact date of bottle two years ago, we tasted this. I'm more of an English barleywine fan, but I love this beer. However, I do prefer it fresh. Age didn't do much but leave no trace of hops, and we all know Alesmith does hops so well. Next time I buy this, it'll be consumed immediately.

On deck: 2015 Pipeworks Murderous (barrel-aged BW); 2015 Alesmith Wee Heavy: 2015 Slumbrew Yankee Swap.

 

Drank these on my birthday last month...
But i had a 2015, 2009, and 2006 Aventinus
It is one of my favorite beers as is.
The 2009 was my most preferred.
Much more caramel, and less phenols than when fresh
the 2006 took on a more molasses flavor, still very good, but seemed to be losing its flavor complexities and the body was thinning more.

7-year old seems to be perfect

 

Palo santo Marron bottled 1-14-14
The mouthfeel has faded as has the Carmel and vanilla. The flavor still carries a good amount of roast with the same licorice and fudgey notes in the fresh bottle. Honestly it's definitely better fresh-1 1/2 years old, but it is still a very good beer at almost 3 years old.

 

same experience with a 2014 Vanilla the other day

 

Summit Old Blaggard English Barleywine (2015)

My original review was almost exactly 1 year ago. I'm a little surprised by how much this has oxidized in that time. Fortunately there are some more sherry like flavors but there is some cardboard too. Still bits of sweetness, but they have fade some. This was fine but much better fresh. I guess the best by date of April 2016 should have been heeded.

 

Last night I drank a Lion Stout that expired October 18, 2001, along with a fresh one. The old one had lost quite a bit of sweetness and almost all roastiness. The boldest flavor was pure must. It reminded me of when I was a kid and going into my dad's unrestored '66 Chevelle that's been sitting in our shed for decades. Or musty like a very old newspaper that's turned yellow. It also had an astringent fermented note that usually comes with super old, low ABV beer. It wasn't undrinkable, but it wasn't good. A very cool experience nonetheless.

 

Opened a 2007 Goose Island Christmas Ale. I wasn't expecting too much from this, but was pleasantly surprised. For being 9 years old, it has some oxidization as expected, but it's nice and caramelized with some toffee and and a little roasted malt coming through.

 

I also had a 2009 Darkness recently and was pretty disappointed. It was pretty oxidized and most of the bakers and dark chocolate flavors had fallen off. I'll chalk this up to a failed cellar experiment, but I wouldn't take Darkness past 5 years.

 

2014 Mad Elf

Hazy, reddish, good head retention. Sweet fruity aroma. Taste is nice and smooth, cherry is mild. Soft mouthfeel. Not as harsh as fresh.

 

Not really a "cellar" review, but I cracked open a Deschutes Black Butte XXVIII the other day since this year I noticed they didn't put a "Best After" date on this one. I thought the beer was actually very good at the 6 month mark and probably will get even better with age, as it was the slightest bit hot still. Notes are below:

Bottled on 06/13/16
Pours dark brown, reddish around the edge. Able to force a billowing khaki head. After a few minutes, a fluffy lace lingers. Lacing stays with the beer throughout the drink.
Smell is interesting. Malty, a bit of the cocoa or peat is present, but they meld together fairly well..
At first it's really non descript. The middle/finish reveals the cocoa, maybe malt and peat, while the finish reveals a faint almost chocolate covered orange thanks to the orange peel (reaching a little here to find the orange) while colder. Really an interesting melding of flavors. As it warms, a little alcohol burn comes out. Not really able to discern any vanilla.
Mouthfeel is amazing. Super smooth, a little astringent in the finish, but this is relatively fresh at 6 months.

 

How was it stored? I've yet to have a Darkness that's fallen off. The 2008 seems to be frozen in time. That said, I'll be having an '09 (among others) tonight, so I can report back. That was always one of my favorite years of Darkness.

 

Great pic. I did a Mad Elf side-by-side with a fresh 2016 and a 2015. Like your experience, the alcohol heat was noticeably less in the year old bottle. Outside of this aspect, however, there wasn't much difference - the look and pour was basically the same, the cherry aroma was strong on both, the base Belgian strong ale held up after a year just fine. Most important - I didn't really enjoy either let alone one more than the other. Go figure; just not my style.