Drinking your cellar.

My only bad habit is drinking beer long before I told myself I would save it until. Thats why now if I find something I like and would like to see how it taste with some age, I have to buy a case or more to make it last. That is the reason I have 100+ bottles at any given time. Thankfully for me, Im mainly a hop head and have plenty of local IPA to keep me from drinking up the closet too fast.

 

True dat. I've been trading off my older stuff and/or drinking it, because hoarding is a sickness, and beer gets wasted this way. If it is really old or rare, I share it at our quarterly tastings. Only bad thing about that is is almost seems like a dick measuring contest at tastings, but then again I get to drink all of everyone's tasty dicks- er... I mean rare tasty beers . My name is Jim and I'm a recovering hoarder.

 

I am too big of a drunk to hold on to beer.
The only beers I have in my "cellar" R
three year vert of Anchor Christmas (Which I dont like)
Surly 5 (because i didnt really like the first bottle)
Surly 6
& that weird expensive HOTD and dechutes collab.
Life is short, drink it up

 

I do have to say though, some beers aren't meant to be drunk fresh (imo) such as most Stone IRS, DFH 120, Yeti, etc. etc.

 

Everything in my cellar has a purpose. Nearly 90% of my cellar is lambic--its what I enjoy the most and drink frequently. It's nice having a wide selection of vintage lambic to choose from. Always adding. Always drinking.

The rest is a mixture of classics (Expedition Stout, Samiclaus, Oerbier) and particular verticals (Bruery Anniversary/Christmas beers).

 

I drank my entire cellar and replaced it with gueuze. Feels good man!

 

Uhh, really? My expectation is that maybe 1/10 people who have 50+ intentionally aging have any damn idea what they're doing, most are just aging beer because they heard somewhere that it ages. (My rationale is simple math, figuring out what ages takes time and beer is growing quickly, most people who are into it won't have been into it for very long. And, especially on BA, people get into it really quickly. I can't count how many "cellars" I've seen with IPAs in them.)

This sounds pretty ignorant to me. Some people don't like aging beer as much as you seem to and they're entitled to their opinion too. Saying that they're only saying that out of ignorance is stupid.

 

Most people cellar more than they can drink for too long in suboptimal conditions. Even most people who really know what they're doing. That's not incompatible with experiencing the joy of a properly aged, sublime cellar treasure... It's actually the cause.

Certainly there are exceptions.

 

Working on this (with a little Pannepot, Bruery anniversary and cuvée van de Keizer thrown in).

 

Don't worry about generalizations, BA works in cycles. 2 years ago cellaring everything was the shit and people were waiting for DIPAs to become barleywines. Now cellaring barleywines is also frowned upon.

Bottomline: Ignore the noise, do your thing. Even if a beer falls off, it'll be just that -- a beer.

 

Yeah, i like most beers fresh, exceptions being:

Sours, i like them either fresh or with more lactic in them, either way, no worries.
Hoppy Stouts. Give them a couple years.
Pro wrestlers are best with 2 decades also.

 

The point isn't the discourage all cellaring, just the thoughtless kind you described above. If someone is cellaring something for a good reason, even if it's just "to see what happens", then that's fine. But I think it's right to discourage the idea that "all beer ages well", which for whatever reason has cropped up. Making the point that a lot of beer doesn't age well and a lot of aging experiments will end up being disappointments is just making sure someone's well informed before they go into the venture.

 

I'm cellaring lambics. The rest I happen to have in my cellar (stouts, barley wines and what not) I've realized often taste shit with some age on it. I've now aged most non-lambics for 1-3 years and that is more than enough, so I drink them and leave my sour belgian nectar to mature

 

I started cellaring mostly because I could. I had the money and after spending time on BA it just seemed like the natural progression of a beer geek I suppose. Bought a wine fridge, converted into a beer fridge and stocked it full pretty fast.

Now, I have come to realize that most cellared beer doesn't taste better, at least not enough to justify keeping beer for years and years. Now, my cellar is still full (plus more boxes now, THANKS BCBS), but it is not about aging beer. It is much more about how I simply cannot drink my beer fast enough. Also I have so many amazing beers it would be a shame to drink them alone. Whenever friends come over and I go to some gathering, I bring out a few bottles.

*I do age a few still, for verticals and such.

 

this is what i was planning to do but it turns out i keep buying too many stouts/barleywines/etc

 

My cellar only exists because I can't stop myself from buying new beer that comes out. I just don't have the ability to drink it all. When I have people over I crack as many bottles as I can to cut down my inventory.

 

^This 100 times over. I want to try new beers and can't drink 10%+ beers every night. Though I have been MUCH more cognizant of what I buy now because I have a cellar that I don't remotely want to get any larger than it is.

 

I've only been cellaring for about a year. My cellar was about 45 bottles when I realized i need to start dipping into it. Mostly because I cant afford to buy beer and not drink it. I started drinking less in general, and everytime I'm hanging out with a buddy opening something from the cellar or something special that was recently purchased. I am also learning what particular styles I want to cellar. No dipas anymore. Only stouts at this point until I try more old ales and barleywines

 

This is a pretty critical and insulting comment directed at me, which makes me chuckle. I've been cellaring beer for over 10 years. I've had thousands of cellared beers in recent years, and I have the educational background and biochem/cell bio work experience to explain what happens to beer when you cellar it. So if that makes me "extraordinarily ignorant," then most of the people on BA are even more ignorant. I also know that there are a lot of new people out there who think that many different beers automatically age well (high abv, sours, stouts, etc.), and that's simply not the case.

If you don't think most beer drops off after being cellared too long, then you have quite a bit to learn.

 

I spent 3 years aging anything high abv, barleywine, imperial stouts, old ales, etc. I've recently converted (over the last 9 months) to cellaring what ages best IMO:
(1) Lambic
(2) Gueuze
(3) HotD
(4) High abv Bruery (BT, M3, Anniversaries)
(5) American Sours
(6) BCBS

Off that list, numbers 3-6 are for less than 5 years as I've only seen results that are good up to that point.
My lambic/gueuze are saved for special events.

Cheers,
Ryan