Aging beers with Brett

The answer to this question can go many ways. But here's my take.
Traditional beers brewed with Brett will evolve in time, but whether this is good is entirely subjective. Some people love Brett and some people hate it.
Recently (past year or two) more breweries have been putting Brett into styles of beer that traditionally have never been brewed with Brett. In my opinion this is great, because really great things come from pushing the boundaries (and sometimes its a bust, but that's part of it). However, there is a huge difference between a young Brett beer and an mature Brett beer, so what happens to these beers that are being brewed using Brett for the first time? Nobody really knows for sure.
All I know is it's fun to watch a lot of these new Brett beers evolve. I know some are going to be awesome and I will have wished I bought a dozen when they were brewed a year or two earlier. I also know that some of them will be terrible and I will have wished I didn't but any.
That't the deal with Brett

 

In regard to why brett beers may age well: Brett ferments more slowly than typical ale yeast and can ferment more complicated sugars. So in 100% brett beers, beers of mixed fermentation or where brett was added in secondary there is a pool of longer chain sugars that the brett will slowly work on.

In my experience, I think many brett beers do age well. Some of them might have too little brett in them for much flavor impact/may have finished too dry with primary fermentation to leave much for the brett. Others (Like New Belgium's beers) are either flash pasteurized (La Folie) or have the brett filtered out (the NB/LA brett beer), so they won't develop with age from continued brett growth. See http://embracethefunk.com/2012/06/26/lauren-salazar-of-new-belgium-qa/

If you want a good idea of what aging brett beers might do, I would look for Orval at a couple different stores in your area. That is one of the the most available brett beers and all bottles are dated so you can try to find different vintages and compare their profiles.

 

Yes, Orval is the shit with some years on it. Also Boulevard Brett, and I am interested to see where Saison Rue goes. I was talking about Brett beers w my local beer guy, and he brought up the interesting point that like good wine, beers with Brett may be good one year, the just ok the next, and fantastic the year after that. Instead of getting better and better up to a certain year and then dropping off to no return, Brett beers can go up and down through the years, which can make a fun cellaring experience.