Aging Weyerbacher Insanity

I have been cellaring insanity for a while and I have enjoyed the differences over the years. I think that the longest that I have gone is about 5 years. I would say that is probably too long, but 18 months - 2 years is a pretty sweet spot for them..

I dont think that the sweetness fades that much.

 

Four years is just sex, but any year is sex.

 

I feel like Insanity ages laterally. It changes but I don't think it improves that much. I've only let it go 2yrs, though.

Great BA Barleywine for the money, though.

 

Anything beyond a year heads into the polarizing candied malt bomb zone.

 

Ages just fine for 2-3 years but the sweetness from the malt isn't going to fade. Its an English style Barley Wine and they are supposed to show a reasonable amount of malty character. Some years back I was able to put together a 3 different years of Insanity and the same three different years of the Blithering Idiot. A group of us did them all in one evening in a combined vertical and side-by-side so that we could see both the contribution of the aging and the contribution of the bourbon barrels. Very useful in being able to figure out effects of aging and effects of bourbon barrels.

 

Ultimately all beers reach an endpoint where they are less sweet than they were fresh (as a purely technical matter). There is a point at which some of the sugars oxidize and the beer will dry out as well as thin out. Whether that process ends up tasting like "good oxidation" or "bad oxidation" I don't know, as I haven't aged this particular beer.

 

Has anyone ever picked up a slight acidic/vinous character to this beer when aged?

I am having a 2014 vintage and im getting some in the smell and taste. Beer is 1.5 yrs old, and i dont remember picking this quality up when fresh. I've also recently had a 1.5 yr old blithering idiot (base beer) and picked up the same thing, only it was even more pronounced.

Is this an oxidation thing possibly? Or maybe its just an element thats in the base beer that i didnt pick up when fresh?

 

Yes, this beer is known to be contaminated. I'm actually really suprised 6 people posted with experience aging this beer before this came up.

 

For me, this beer does not lose much if any of its sweetness. And as much as I love this beer, I would not let it go longer than a year or two as I just don't feel it develops too much beyond that. For the record, I am of the school of thought that most barrel aged beers are best consumed rather fresh and this one falls into that category for me. Cheers.

 

OP, where are you in PA? I probably have some older Insanity in my cellar...