Aged Backwoods Bastard

Its one of my favorite fresh or aged... I did get a 2011 at the end of last winter that was starting to go downhill, so they don't age forever, but a 1-2 year old is pretty tasty.

 

Fresh, it's like bourbon water. It seems to develop more flavor and a richer mouthfeel with time. Even a few months really help this beer, but anywhere from 1-2.5 years it's fantastic. Given the price and convenience of 4pk packaging, this and Founders Imperial Stout make for great, cheap cellar fodder.

 

From my experience the bourbon and vanilla start to drop off a lot with age. It does certainly develop in other areas but I miss those vanilla notes a lot.

 

My experiences with aging this beer are not good. It takes on some strange flavors after a couple of years. Certainly do not keep past a year. There is nothing gained and potentially much lost, especially valuable cellar space.

 

Great thread, great beer. I'd age it no more than 2 years as is the norm with barrel aged beers.

 

Personally, I prefer this beer fresh but I will not argue with those who prefer to let this sit for 6 months or so. The beer holds up well with age, meaning it does not have a huge fall off, however I do not believe the beer improves at all.

 

I LOVE Backwoods Bastard. Personally, I think it's their best beer. Super easy to find and it comes in four packs...what's not to love?

Just found 2 bottles of 2012 in my cellar...going to pop one soon and see how it held up. I personally like these anywhere from fresh to it having about a years age on it. Like stated above, I wouldn't go over two years!

 

I found a two year old bottle in my cellar when the last fresh came out and I did a side by side. It was amazing to see how this beer changed/developed over that time period. They were both good in their own ways: fresh was more woody and bourbon heat - aged was thinner and much sweeter but still had a decent bourbon flavor. Based on this, I'm thinking one year would be perfect but of the two that I tried, I like the fresh slightly better.

 

6-15 months...no more.

 

I would kill for this to be easy to find in Texas. One of my favorites and I agree with the best Founders has to offer.

 

I aged some of last year's and drank one every couple of months. I loved it fresh, but found that for my personal tastes 4-6 months was optimum. I drank my last two a couple of weeks ago (forget when exactly it came out, but I think that would be about 10 or 11 months) and I thought the bourbon had faded to being less prevalent than I really wanted at that point. It was still good, but to me was missing what makes that particular beer so unique and so good.

 

I liked BB better than KBS last year honestly. Significantly better, in fact.

 

Different scenario than bottles, but I had 2009 BB on tap a few months ago side by side with '13 on tap. The 09 was much better in my opinion.