Your home beer cellar 2020.

My “cellar” ended up growing. I had an opportunity to stop at Russian River, and ended up stocking up. But all I’ve really felt like opening have been IPAs (with an occasional DIPA, like Pliny) and lighter beers. I did enjoy a well-aged imperial stout that was utterly fantastic, but that was for a special occasion. I miss being able to share big beers with good company, but I’m glad to wait in order to do so safely.

 

Mine has stayed right around 1,200 bottles for a couple of years now. I've really cut back on my beer purchasing but can't seem to make a dent.

 

I am making a concerted effort to grow my cellar right now. At the new year it was at about 25-30 beers, now its up to maybe 40. Its almost all bigfoot, narwhal, bcbs, parabola and various lambics/wild ales.

I think the notion that aging beers is never a good idea is a bald fallacy for my palate. Bcbs and parabola both are more enjoyable for me with a year plus on them. Bigfoot is something I enjoy fresh but is enjoyable in a different way as it ages. Narwhal is the current one I'm experimenting with, so far I found it to have fallen off a bit for my tastes around 12-15 months old but folks have regularly reported it having an awkward phase and then hitting a second stride around 2-3 years old. I'll known this winter if that's how o feel about it and if not I'll suffer through 10 narwhals that are past their prime and then only buy it fresh.

The lambics are mostly just stuff I pick up when it shows up because its not always available

 

Precisely this. Rather than throwing random stuff into the cellar (circa 2008) I've been noting what does/doesn't age well over the years, & most of my cellar is now things I know will age well. At a peak of near 400 I'm down under 300 (with a hearty beer-drinking wife).

Aging is fun. Noting the differences (especially side by side) of the same beer at different ages is fun. Noting the beers that get better, stay steady, or decline is fun.

I don't have a specific target, but suspect within the next few years my cellar is going to drop to around 200 & stop there.

 

If you need any help moving things along, I'll take one for the team and assist...

My own cellar has been slowly shrinking, I've been going after some stuff in there, though I;m also doing my part to help local breweries and bottle shops by buying new when I get the opportunity.
i have a bunch of stuff in mine that is likely well past prime, though it's oddly tough breaking into some of them.

 

I was probably upwards of 350-400 bottles pre pandemic. I had the usual suspects, Abyss vertical, Bruery Anniversary vertical, Central Waters verticals and I've either drank them or drank them down to just one bottle. Put in some effort to drink some older stuff.

Last week I came home with 86 bottles from my Casey membership. Back in the weeds.

On a plus note my "cellar" room is almost complete and I can get everything out of boxes and back on the shelves. Such a pain to dig through 20 plus boxes to find a beer or 2. Hope to post a few pics in the near future.

 

Mine has grown a little. Local restaurants and bars selling off their inventory has been hard to resist. Also, with the border closed, I’ve got a large number of bottles for a couple trade partners who aren’t able to make the trip up here.

I’m trying to limit what I keep for any length of time now to Lambic and some Barleywines and old ales. I find almost everything else just deteriorates.

 

Yes, exactly. The problem I found, was that there are so many incredible excellent beers, it's easy to accidentally create a cellar of super tasty brews! (I'm guilty)

It is exciting, that there are different opinions of this matter.

I also think our tastes change over the years, which affects our opinion of the beer. But just might be marginally.

Also some beers, that's been aged after a couple years possibly weren't good from the start. (I'm guilty, lol) I forced myself to drink everything fresh before storing extras.

Other beers, pastry stouts from Modern times while super delicious - maybe can't hold up several years. In 2020, I'm careful what to buy, since I don't want to look at my cellar and find $3k of bad beers.

 

My cellar is definitely shrinking; I've been drinking down a lot of verticals, and my list of unique Gots in the inventory has dropped by about two-thirds since the start of the year. That has led to a much higher percentage of my remaining cellar being Revolution Deep Woods releases and assorted wild ales. I'm less adventurous and don't splurge as much, as I learn more about what I like, but COVID-19 has definitely accelerated the process of grabbing aged vintages without regard for it being a special occasion.

I'm over two hours from Chicago and my local bottle shops have been cutting back on craft selections during quarantine periods, so those factors have both also contributed. When I drove up for Revolution's Supermassive pickup, I made a day of it and stopped by Dovetail, Half Acre, Forbidden Root, and Binny's to stock up. I'll be going up again this weekend for Mixed Berry Ryeway and am planning on Pipeworks and Dovetail.

 

The only reason I "cellar" anything now is solely for space. For instance, I bought a couple Mott the Lesser RIS. Because of COVID, I couldn't pick them up til the summer.

They’re stashed away, but because I don’t want a 10% stout in the summer, and i want room in the fridge for things I will drink.

Ditto on loading up on F-W brown box beers before the left the NE market. Not cellaring just stashing beers I like (and have had before) for a rainy day.

 

Reading this makes me regret only loading up on Oxbow when I went to Portland, Maine earlier this summer. Now we're banned from Maine (again) and I'm disheartened I didn't pop into a couple other places.

 

With all due respect, I don't think that my small cellar (now 76 items in the inventory, some of which are in several bottles of the same beer) is a simple stock.
I am lucky enough to have a cellar at home with a fixed temperature of 16 ° C.
There I keep, I get old and every now and then (when it finds the right amount of courage and I am convinced that it is the right time) I taste products that I have certainly already tasted "young" and I compare the reviews with the same "older" product ".
Furthermore, I keep "pearls" that are no longer in production for the most varied reasons ...
For these reasons, my cellar, depending on what I have the opportunity to find and depending on how much thirst for history I have, rises and falls, keeping in any case fairly constant in quantity, always aspiring to rise in terms of quality (in accord with my tastes).
I read: "I figure if I want a nice heavy stout just enjoy now rather than stash away." ... I think it can be done, but aging the same beer and then comparing the two reviews brings the experience to a upper level.
Finally, I believe that this is more appropriate for sour beers, perhaps with the addition of fruit, which risk reaching an exaggerated astringency. Instead, Imperial stouts, Barley wines etc., perhaps with a passage in wood, (almost always) have an evolutionary parable that undoubtedly rounds and embellishes the initial product as it was born.
This is just my situation and my personal humble opinion.

 

I have read most, but not the entire thread. Thought I would add to this.

My cellar at its worst was probably 400ish bottles. Didn't realize it was that many until I moved. Then I did. A lot of beers that I have/had were because I purchased too many at one time (especially during the first year, or just before that, of really getting "into" beer). As an example, I used to really only drink belgians, and I was a huge fan of Abita Andygator and their Mardi Gras Bock. At the time that I purchased the ones that I still have, I could only find them when I traveled. I just wasn't in the distro footprint. Well, then everywhere became the distro footprint, and my preferences changed.

Anyway, more on topic: Since around Christmas, my cellar has not changed substantially. I probably have 250ish total bottles. Since the pandemic, I've pretty much been completely isolated, and for reasons I won't touch on, don't have the funds to buy alcohol anyway. As a result, I've only been drinking down the cellar. BUT, for the past year-1.5 years, I've only been drinking 1-3 beers a week, which isn't much in the grand scheme. Also, I've been enjoying whiskey more, partially because of having an infant, and it's easier to have a couple 1/4 or 1/2 pours than to open a beer, especially if it's 8pm when I have the opportunity to finally open something, and baby goes to bed soon. I've maybe drank through 20-30 brews since Christmas. Not that many.

I won't be buying more than maybe 1-2 dozen over the next 9-12 months, so hopefully I can continue to put a dent in my stock.

Half of my stock is comprised of styles that, at least to me, generally benefit from additional age, like BCBS.