Dump or Keep: Cellaring for Science?

This lockdown stuff has been pretty handy for drinking down the cellar, for me at least. (I know a lot of you BAs have said similar.) It has also forced me to confront a truth that I knew was lurking down there: Some of my stuff is just too old to enjoy. I've had to examine my conscience, asking, at what point am I drinking this as a sort of penance for overstocking or letting 'em go too far? I've tried to liberate myself from just drinking the superannuated stuff, and bought plenty of fresh stuff, so long as most of the time I do open something with the existing inventory, even if it's a quick drain pour.

For example, tonight I've poured one of my last (but not very last) remaining from a case of St. Bernardus 12, about 10 years old, with a best-by date in 2014. Like with the couple others I've done during the last few months, it pours beautifully with a bountiful head and port-like smells. The first quarter to third of the bottle is all caramel and sherry, lively, and actually quite nice. But well before halfway it starts to taste like I'm trying to drink the remainder of something left in a glass from a party the night before. (Speaking hypothetically, rest assured.) So, the rest will be sacrifice to the drain gods. I've had similar with some Rochefort 10s of similar vintage (from my throw-a-case-in-the-cellar-and-forget-it phase) and, sadly some Pannepot (non-Reserva) Vintage 2016. (A few older Reservas have been brilliant but few have stood up as long as the Trappists.)

SO. The question now is just to pour them all out, unshackle my conscience and free up cellar space (not that much of a problem, to be honest) — or should I hold onto a few, for science, and see what it's like at some absurd age in a decade or more?

I ask you, BAs.

 

For sure everything has been tasted if not drunk up to recent weeks. I guess there nothing for it but to keep on with it, then. I’m still left with the question of whether to forget something for decades from now as an experience.

 

Yes, yes, def’ly lots of stuff precipitating out of these oldies, but it’s standard practice here in bottle-conditioning land to pour carefully off the lees, even with the fresh stuff. I had some daily old, pre-brewers-expansion Westy 12s (this is years ago) would get almost blond-looking around the edges.

To recap, I feel well-supported in everything I’ve done up to now…

So, idle opinions on the original question?!

 

I seem to have sent you all chasing the wrong rabbit — sorry. Don't worry, I'm not dumping anything without tasting it. (Keeping in mind that of all the beer at issue, I have recently tasted multiple bottles of each.)

The ultimate question I meant to get at, remains: Is it worth setting aside a last example to forget for a few years, in the dream that in some distant future it will become interesting again, perhaps some unexpected way?

... Or to put it in a less binary way, if the big Trappists now getting up toward the decade mark, what happens in another decade, say?

 

(BTW never mind about lambics, that's a totally different barrel of fish, for which I feel like I'm already setting up future heirs.)