Aging Sofie, Matilda, and Curmudgeon

I had a Matilda fresh, with a year, and with 2 1/2 years and I definitely preferred the year. It may have been an issue of being in a weird in between stage, but the 2 1/2 years was easily the worst of the bunch.

Sophie is best with age. I'm still working on fine tuning how long, but I'm not a big fan fresh and think it's great with a year.

Curmudgeon is great fresh, so I've never taken the time to age it.

 

I had Sofie with about half a year and I wasn't impressed. I also have 2012 Matilda and 2013 Matilda rigth now, so I'll have to report back if I get the chance to open them

 

The best bottle of Matilda I had was 3 years old. The brett made the beer so fruit and juicy and it was truly the best bottle of Matilda I've had.

 

6 months isn't long enough for anything to happen. Try 2-3 years.

 

Not exactly the topic but how is Lolita best?

 

i'm not remembering exact release dates at the moment but i loved my last bottle of the previous batch, when i had it a month or two before the most recent batch came out (i was extremely disappointed with fresh after having the aged), but i can't say if it would have continued to get better or not. i've also heard there's a lot of batch variation with the sour sisters.

anyone wanna weigh in on curmudgeon? just trying to get an idea of how many years i should pretend that it doesn't exist.

 

Curmudgeon is one beer I wish I could un-cellar as I've had a few bad experiences and the beer varies so damn much batch to batch. I stopped buying it and am not looking forward to drinking down my cellared bottles. It just tends to have too much of a cherry cough syrup flavor for me, not like any other old ale/barleywine I can think of.

Matilda seems to be best with 18 months or more, though I confess it isn't my favorite bretted beer.

I concur with this assessment. The best Sofie bottles I've had were around 24 months old. It starts to lose some of the witbier-esque qualities, dries out and gets a wee bit funkier.

 

Several months back I had a 30 month old one or so and that was when I realized those who said to age Sofie were not joking

I immediately ran out and got a case of 12 oz's; I am going to try the first one at 12 months but I am pretty sure it will need more time already, lol.

 

Curmudgeon doesn't really improve with age. If anything it kinda fades as opposed to gaining anything.

 

2 year old Sofie is about one of the most enjoyable drinking experiences I've had this year.

 

The oldest Sofie that I have drank was a little over a year old and it was definately better than fresh! The wine barrel really shows up and the beer started drying out nicely. Its a really great beer for the cellar, if only I could hold onto one for two years. Its hard to do when I know how good Sofie is with a year on it!

I have no experience with aged curmudgeon or matilda.

 

6 months is long enough to have things change, that is a good time to taste thing over a 2 or 3 year period every 6 months to see how things are devloping

 

Not sure if I can say 3 years is the sweet spot for Sofie but 2011 was the best. 2010 not so much.

 

Seems like every older bottle of Sofie I have had was a HUGE gusher. Probably the biggest gusher I have had consistently (could have been all one years bottles from around here). Has anybody else noticed that?

 

brett anything will gush after a while from my experience

 

Two year old Sophie is sublime. Wait on it if you can.

 

I'm going to disagree with you. Personally, I think it's fantastic with 9-12 months on it. It just gets so smooth.

 

i've had some curmudgeon aging for a couple years. i'll report back (shrug).

sofie is always awesome.

i forget about matilda. honestly i think matilda kind of sucks unless it's lambicus.

 

Agreed I enjoy Curmudgeon much more with 8-18 months on it. 2 Years is my limit to age it though.