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.

 

I've got one that I'm taking to two years, just to see what happens. It's just so amazing around a year (+/- 3 or so months) that there really isn't a reason to age it any longer.

 

First of all, given that we're talking about Goose Island here, the proper term is squirter. You know, as in "Sofie/Juliet/Lolita is a squirter"

As @BrettHead said, bieres de brett tend to gush once the brett really gets going.

 

I'll tell you in 2015 when I have a chance to do a 5 year vert of each (Sofie and Matilda)! These are the first two beers that I ever bought with the intention of holding on to them. I was just getting into craft beer and these were two of my gateway beers, with one thing that intrigued me being that the label said that it develops in the bottle for up to 5 years, so I decided then to buy one every year for 5 years and see what happens, well before I knew that was called a vertical. I'm going to be really excited when I am able to crack these open and see what 5 yeas does to these ladies.

 

I had a 2012 sofie a week ago and it was amazing. Lots of well balanced sweet notes and just the right amount of funk. Aging does this beer well

 

How meticulously has everyone been aging their Sofies (with positive results)? We talking dedicated beverage fridges @ 55 degrees, just letting 'em sit in a fridge for a couple years, stuffed away at the bottom of a closet?

Enjoyed six-month old Sofie quite a bit, but don't have a proper cellar available to me (nor a good closet, living in a hot climate, where indoor temps in the summer get into the low 80s). Trying to figure out how best to try her with a little age.

 

I enjoy Curmudgeon with 1-2 years of aging. It rounds out very nicely. I purchase it with the express intent of putting at least 4 down for minimum one year. I do not believe I have drunk one beyond 2 years, although I have a few in the cellar going back further.

 

Founders rep dropped off a Curmudgeon 4pk going back four years, one each. Guess I'll know soon when I open them how well it does.

 

This thread convinced me to buy a couple bottles of Sophie to stash away in the beer cellar.

 

Thank you for resurrecting this thread! I am reminded to check on my Sofie!

 

Matilda is great at 1-2 years. At 3 years it was still good. I do not know about 4-5 years. At 6 years it lost everything and was cardboardy.

Sophie fresh is great. At 1 year, it is better. Have not had an older one.

Curmudgeon is not my favorite when fresh. I love it at 9 months. It gets a huge chocolate flavor. I did not like my 2 year old Curmudgeon as much as 9 month.

 

4 to 5 year Sophie and Matilda are fucking great!

 

This. I have gone about 3 years and they are pretty similar. Not much difference after the first year, but years 2-3 are great with a really nice, tart flavor.

 

I had a 3 year old curmudgeon recently that I thought had actually tasted better than a 1 year old, but it does have crazy amounts of variation within it it's really hard to say aging does anything to that beer.

 

I've started aging some Sofie and Matilda and stumbled on this thread. I couldn't find any of your posts about the results of these verticals. I would love to hear how it went.