Aging Various Sours / Lambics / Guezes

First thing's first. If you've never had the beer before, then you should drink it now. Otherwise, how will you ever know if it aged well?

You may also find this thread interesting: http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...e-of-lambic-youve-tried-and-how-was-it.81292/

The reason many low-ABV sours age well and improve with age is because they are bottle conditioned with certain types of bugs and yeast that will continue to change the beer over time. The changes in flavor are due to the microbes continuing to work on the beer (as opposed to typical beer yeast that stop working after all sugars are fully fermented from a beer).

 

Yes, lambics are great for aging, based on them being naturally carbonated, unfiltered, and having live yeast in the bottle.

Yes, imperial Stouts are great for aging, based on their high alcohol content, malt bill, and generally low reliance on hops in the beer.

All beer is fine to drink fresh. That being said, I've had 2011 Stone IRS that was FANTASTIC, and 2012 Victory Storm King that was just lovely.

A May 2013 sour that you just received is probably great fresh, and probably more tart now because it has aged. I rarely cellar beer because it "needs time", I do it more so to see how it changes over time, but mostly because I like saving those exclusive beers for special occasions.

People routinely can drink bottles of Cantillon or Drie Fonteinen for 10-20 years after bottling...if you can wait that long. Bottom line is just drink beer, don't fuss over cellaring unless you have more than one...because it could very well taste better fresh than aged.

People routinely buy a case of SN Bigfoot, because it is a great aging beer, and will do multi year vertical tastings of different vintages.

Cheers
Jeremy

 

Officially the term lambic does not refer to a beer made in a specific region, but using a specific technique. The majority of the lambic produced today is done in the Senne Valley outside of Brussels, because traditionally this region had ideal conditions for the technique specific to lambic production. The technique that I am referring to is spontaneous fermentation. To be called a lambic, a beer has to be made with (at a least a majority) of sponteneously fermented wort that is aged in oak barrels.

As a side note, as far as I can tell, Upland misuses the term Lambic in their labeling, as their sour beer is not spontaneously fermented (unfortunately I believe that the naming protections for the term lambic only hold in the EU).

 

More directly, they are not lambics because they have been inoculated. Not really an opinion thing.

 

Didnt mean to come off as a dick on that last post.

 

From a few guys that work in industry that I have had conversations with they have said Sours/Lambics age at 45 and Stouts/Barleywines/other high abv beers go at 55. This varies though from person to person. The big boozy releases from firestone would fit the category in 55 degrees but on the bottle/box they want you to cellar in low 40s..

 

I would be afraid that the Brett wouldn't remain active at that low a temperature, which is the primary cause of positive aging in lambics, and also what slows oxidation.