Why are you aging THAT beer?

Well I'm glad that someone else is saying the same thing I've been saying for years.

If you don't have the money, and you don't have the cellar, what are you doing aging beers? Especially expensive and limited edition beers!

Of all of the beers that I've aged in the past I'd say that only about 5% improved (maybe), about another 5% remained mostly the same, and 90% were worse off for wear to different extents. It can be interesting, and there's definitely some learning, but there's very little reward beyond that. So if your intent is to age something in the hopes that it'll turn into liquid gold I'd suggest you think again, especially if you've got it in a closet in your apartment.

Myself, I'm just someone who likes to have variety, and I would buy a case of this beer, that beer, and whatever and kept it in the cellar so that I could grab it when I wanted it during the year. In Pennsylvania at the time you could only buy beer by the case, so that had a lot to do with it! Occasionally though beers would get left behind, or re-purchesed, and I'd end up with old beers. That led me to start doing vertical tastings (and try to fill in the gaps I was missing), and that was fun, but as I've noted, for the most part it didn't go very well.

 

I'd say those numbers are decently generous, but in the right ballpark.

Here's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. If your beer has already spent a lot of time exposed to oxygen, like resting in a wooden barrel for a while, it's probably not going to get any better with more age in the bottle and should be consumed as soon as possible. The exception to this would be any beer with brettanomyces in it, as brett is an oxygen scavenger.

Most clean beers worth aging are big, malty beers that haven't spent any time in wood. That way their oxygen exposure is minimal.

 

The most hyped, highest rated, most sought after and traded stouts are nearly all barrel aged and/or with coffee/chocolate/vanilla/maple/whatever added. The very flavors that make the beers so hyped are the flavors that disappear with aging, yet for some reason these beers are among those most popular to age.

 

Sounds to me like the guy at your beer shop was doing a little "marketing" in getting you to buy more beer for the basement. Never trust a salesperson, they have one goal: get as much of your money as possible (not an indictment just stating facts.) Also I don't think those Prairie beers get better with age, at 6 months I thought it lost what delicate flavors it had and it came across ho-hum flavor wise.

 

If I could freeze my cellar in time and keep my beer from aging I would, as I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. My reason for having an abundance of beer is largely just because I like to have options for a good beer at any time, and for beers that are "tradeable" to acquire new things to try.

I lament the fact that the beer in my cellar is "aging".

 

I age beers mainly due to beers being rare releases and if I don't buy now who's to say it'll be around when I want it? I try to limit myself one or 2 bottles a day as well as not consume every day.

Another reason I age beers is because yes they do get better with age, some beers that is. For instance, first time I had blue Chimmay it was in England and had only a year on it and was good but couple years later I had it with 7 years on it and the taste just blew me away, was much richer and smoother.

A lot of times from having something fresh I realize it's not to my liking and well I have 3 bottles left let's see what happens when I age them. Biggest examples of this are imperial stouts with little to no coffee flavor and barleywines. For instance when I consumed DFH 120 IPA fresh I hated it but am hoping it will taste amazing in 5 years. Same goes to DFH barleywine.

Some success I had was with SN Maple Scotch Ale, I hated it fresh but I aged a couple for 6 months and the maple started to shine. I still have a couple I'm aging with hopes of another improvement.

I have about 200 bottles I'm aging right now, some I've had fresh and some I haven't. A lot of times I can get an idea on whether I will like it fresh or just aged by reading reviews and understanding the ingredients of the beer, abv, and how it's supposed to taste. If reviews state it to be too hot or too harsh or flavors are not mashing together I age it in hopes I will be able to enjoy a beer most disliked fresh but because I aged it I get to enjoy. But I do not believe in have one fresh and have one to age. Some just taste better fresh, some taste better age. With so many reviews out there you can do the research and figure out each beer's best time to drink. Beer is too pricey and not worth spending on something your going to dislike. Works both ways though as some are better fresh and some better aged.

Furthermore when it comes to KBS I have a feeling it doesn't age well. Founders says themselves to drink it within 365 days. I'm a big component of aging beers, especially imperial stouts but I refuse to age KBS more than 12 months due to the fact I loved it fresh and afraid aging it will lose that barrel flavor I love so very much.

Cheers!

 

I age very few things these days with the purpose of finding out how they change over time. Some of those that I do are Expedition Stout, Stone Russian Imperial Stout, World Wide Stout, DogFishHead 120min, BCBS regular and some Cantillon lambics. All of those beers I've had fresh on multiple occasions but still have multiples off which I then decided to 'play with' and see what aging at 50-55F does to flavors. I've found that holding on to adjunct stouts for an extended period of time has yielded far more disappointment than delight.

Most of the big bottles with adjuncts or otherwise which are sitting in my cellar (aka temperature controlled beer chest) are there simply because I haven't been able to get to them yet or are rare enough that I'm waiting for a good friend to visit to open one. I just hope the flavors don't fall off too much before their opening.

 

I couldn't help but age KBS since you get quite a bit in an allotment. It's funny they say "drink it fresh" or "we have already done the aging for you" when they sold vintage cases at their cellar raid this year. 2014-16 in one case and sold 5 year old bottles of Bolt Cutter.

I have KBS going back to 2009....are they all still prime? Probably not. But as a novelty since I'm right down the road from the brewery we are going to do a 10 year vertical next year.

 

Report back I'd like to know how that goes. As I said already I enjoy a good aged agable beer but have only had KBS fresh so I'd be interested in your analysis

 

The beer that aged best for me was Trappistes Rochefort 10 with a few years on it. I've got a bunch of WWS, Expedition, KBS, DFH 120. I plan on drinking the cellar down of those.

 

Thank god, i've been saying this for a long time too.

on similar note i have a vertical of SN Celebration going on because I had read on here that it turns into a barley wine lite. In my own experience I found this to be true. I did it not because I thought would get better but because it was an interesting tidbit. Hell it was a lot of fun too!

A few of the beers I found to actually improve with age are Bells Expedition Stout, Brooklyn Monster Ale (3+ years), and North Coast Barrel Aged Old Rasputin. SN Bigfoot changes a lot but I wouldn't say it improves.

 

I don't cellar many beers but when I do it is out of curiosity to see how they change. Very often it happens because I will buy a 4-pack or 6-pack of something that is ageable and drink all but 1. That 1 will get cellared to see how it changes. They almost never get better but they change and it's a learning experience.

 

This took me a while to think on, but I think why I age beers goes back to when I first got into craft. Abyss 2006 was just realeased and was sitting on shelves everywhere around WSU. I would go to the bottle shop down the road (Old Post Office) to pick up a bottle or two for Saturday night nerd game sessions, or I would go to the bar across the street (My Office) and have my newfound love Abyss 06 on tap. Then, suddenly out of nowhere Abyss was just "gone". I asked the bottle shop lady when they would get more- "More? That's a seasonal beer, so most likely next year". Woah woah woah waitaminutehere. What do you mean by "seasonal" and "next year"???? When Abyss 07 finally came out I bought 3 cases of that delicious nectar to save for later, only by then it was at the cusp of the craft explosion in this region, so by 08 I was lucky enough to cobble a full case out of several bottle shops of the 08 Abyss release. This is the beer that started me hoarding and cellaring- without intending to cellar and age. It was only around the 08 Abyss release that I started connecting the dots of why the 06 & 07s I had saved didn't taste the same as I had remembered, and why the 08 tasted so different.

So in a way, I guess I "accidented" into cellaring out of a naiive attempt to combat limited/seasonal release disappearance of something I wanted to drink year round.

 

I have limited beer aging to Bigfoot and Alaskan Smoked Porter. The rest have been too iffy.

 

Laugh at me if you will but I am also aging Founders Lizard of Koz and Founders Frootwood. It's easy for me since I got a ton of the stuff at the brewery but both were misses for me. I tucked a bottle of each away in a deep dark place where I hope I'll forget about it for 3-5 years and I'll check them out again. I have another bottle of each that I'm going to dig into at 1 year old but my hopes aren't too high on them.

 

As has been mentioned thousands of times over the years, aging can be very subjective to taste. Saying only 5% improve/5% stay the same/90% fall off might be true for one person's palate, but it hasn't been for mine.

When I first started "cellaring" beers back in 2008 I had no idea what I was doing. But through trial & error I figured out what I like & what I don't like. I found that the cherry that came out in Expedition Stout after a year or two actively engaged my gag reflex; & plenty of people swear by aging that beer. Darkness, on the other hand, not only doesn't change much, but seems to defy logic by holding on to its hoppiness (at least some years do). Mother of All Storms, Central Waters Bourbon Barrel Barleywine, The Abyss, several of the old Weyerbacher anniversary beers are other examples that for me actually improve with age, among others.

Do some beers fall of, even quickly? Sure. Do others improve? Absolutely. Finding which is which for your individual palate is part of the fun.

 

I'm specifically aging a few beers for part experiment/part enjoyment such as Expedition Stout, Bigfoot, DFH 120, Bells Third Coast and a few wild ales with Brett. All of these I've had fresh, some I enjoyed more than others, but mainly want to taste them with age.

Then there's various other beers tucked away that didn't get drank when I bought them or just haven't had an occasion for a special release beer.

It's a small "cellar" so I can track everything on an excel spreadsheet and can sort by when they should be drank. Adjunct heavy stouts are near the top of the list and longer term projects schedule out.

With cold weather approaching, I look forward to a quick trip to the basement for a nice stout instead of having to run to the store. Sure, the few KBS or Mexican Cake leftover may have faded a little but it will still be a nice fall treat.

 

90% worse ? I'm guessing you are including all types of beers.

From my experience, high abv % BA stouts (without adjuncts) definitely improve after a year (or more) . Vintage Black Tuesday taste silky smooth, Bourbon County '12-14 (that I've had) are incredible, even better than fresh. Even smaller ones like Plead the Fifth, are more enjoyable.

Others such as FSW barrel aged ones, were similar. But since they haven't gotten worse, I'm in no rush.

A friend sent me some 6 year & 15 year old bigfoot bottles. Those didn't taste any better than a fresh '17 bottle. That, was a little disappointing.

The ones with adjuncts, I think are more likely to get "worse" in time. Of course, not at of them.


Of course, when I started to age beers, I didn't know what I was doing.

I suppose the reason I now age is because I buy so much I can't/don't want to drink it all away right away. I'll get my allotment of Bottle Logic BA stouts, and won't starting opening up a bottle for awhile. One reason is they keep it on draft for quite away. Even FO, lasted on draft for 5 weeks.

Another reason if I traded for another limited beer (that I'll likely not get again) will wait for a special occasion. The problem is, few special occasions come up, lol!

The other benefit of "aging" a beer is if it's desirable - you can trade it away for something that you can't get locally.

Drinking beer is definitely a fun, expensive hobby to share it with my friends.

 

I'm not cellaring much anymore, but I'll sometimes age a beer that doesn't age well to do a side by side just to see how those styles change. I've done a few iipas, some actually aren't terrible, hefes don't even try.