I'm currently aging a 2013 Autumn Maple as the bottle claims its good for cellaring. I'm curious how the bourbon barrel Autumn Maple and 100% Brett Autumn Maple have held up aging. Have spices faded? What is the best age for Autumn Maple and its variants?
Regular Autumn Maple holds up fine, for aging, but as the spices drop out you basically have a Dubbel. So... I'm not entirely certain what the point is, but it certainly doesn't hurt. The last 100% Brett Autumn Maple I had wasn't very good, nor was the 100% Barrel Aged, but I didn't love them, to start. Batch 1 Bourbon Barrel is by far the best Autumn Maple variant, maybe one of the best Bruery beers, and was holding up fine 18ish months ago when I had it last, but that's a long time. The current batch has all soured to horrible affect, unfortunately.
Opened all three batches of bourbon autumn maple a few weeks ago. The newest batch, as has been mentioned, is starting to sour (I kept my bottles at 38 so it isnt super prominent, but others that have kept them at cellar temp have said that they are totally gone already). Batches 1 and 2 were both fantastic. More oxidation and lower carb in the batch 1 but still lots of bourbon and spice, a really fantastic beer, but one which probably wont benefit from much more aging at this point. Batch 2 was a bit brighter and spicier than batch 1, and I think I liked them equally. You could probably sit on batch 2 a bit longer if you wanted, but I thought it was tasting great right now.
