Beer Hoarding

I drink whatever I like from the cellar, but I always ask myself "will I have the time to really enjoy this beer tonight" or will I be worried about staying up late or ignoring my wife, etc. It creates some anxiety and sometimes I pass, but I never worry about drinking the last one.

 

We at the Cellar going up, on a Tuesday

 

Only when I glance at my old bottles of Thomas Hardy's Ale and Courage Russian Imperial Stout.

 

Great topic again, since I got into the game, I have these anxieties and I think all the responses on this thread, answered those woes. It's all encompassed, I try to share the really, really good stuff with bottle shares, because those guys really go nuts and that makes me feel good or a close friend like @Starscream86, who got me into it but I've got cases of whales, like some other people on here. Unfortunately, we don't share enough, so I'm piling up. I can't stop hunting, buying and trading and possibly reselling, when the time comes. I'm trying to go the distance and once you have so many beers, you can open one a week, for years; at this point, that's where I am at. I don't drink regularly either, so that helps, I like to celebrate moments, as well. You can pretty much scan bars too via apps nowadays and drink what they have instead of cracking your own BCBS, it helps stretch it. I really like the idea of a beer cellar, like an actual cellar, with wine on the other side. The thread on here encouraged me do so and I met guy who gave me a 20yr old sweet stout, that had been in an out of storage units, it drank like a vintage JW Lees and I never looked back after that moment.

No one seemed to list any beers they can't crack at the moment:

Black Tuesday 12 (First beer I traded for, for my Moat Water)
Rare DOS (I cracked like eight and Im trying to keep my last two)
Good Gourd Almighty
El Cid (Had 3, traded 2 -194bc)
Black Eyed King Imp (super limited and just acquired, due for bottle share)
Prop
Vanilla Rye (We had a Vanilla 10 and it was still excellent, time will only help)
FSW Stickee, DBA, Sucaba, Anni18 (They're in a box, man!)
Bruery Sucre Variants, Bois Variants, BT variants

 

Once you have a few that go bad, you will stop worrying about holding on to them.

 

Now THAT is a good way to look at it. I have this problem and will begin looking at it this way.

 

Drink up. You might get run down by a truck tomorrow.

 

I'm fine drinking any beer that I buy - sometimes I may want to age it to see what it tastes like later on, but I usually buy multiples so I can taste one fresh and compare it to the aged version. The only other reason I don't drink them fresh is I like having tastings with my friends and sometimes they don't happen frequently enough to put a meaningful dent in my cellar (e.g. buying more than I'm drinking).

 

So for me, it depended on how "mature" my cellar was at that specific time. When I first started out cellaring beers, I had a very small inventory. So if I opened my only "dark lord" or whatever, I was a bit anxious but obviously also excited. Now, I very much enjoy opening these beers, especially when sharing with others. But now I have a pretty robust cellar of 200+ types and over 300+ bottles overall. So now I don't really care as much and I open what I want, when I want for the most part.

 

I do understand the hesitancy in opening those special beers and I do find myself spending way too much time thinking about when I should drink em. Like many things in life, it's a balance between enjoying some now or waiting and saving it for a future occasion.

Things I consider if/when I decide to drink those really nice, high end beers:
1. Tasty food that will pair well with the beer.
2. Not to eat to much salt early in the day or other things that can wreck my palette.
3. Other beers that will complement the special beer (i.e. warm up beers :-) )
4. Friends to share with.
5. Weather!

 

I know what you mean... I've got a CBS and a Better half that I just can't seem to pull the trigger on.

 

I've made every mistake possible with aging and hoarding especially holding onto things too long. Let me recommend Patrick Dawson's Vintage Beer - I would hsve avoided a lot of agony if he had written the book 10 years ago.

 

I totally get what you're saying, OP. Here's what I do.

I keep a spreadsheet with 2 sections. The cellar list shows what's in my cellar and the date I intend to move them to the "to drink" list. The "to drink" list contains what's in my fridge and what's ready to go into the fridge. These are my "drink now" beers. I have them in drinking order, which usually alternates lighter styles (IPAs, saisons, sours) and darker styles (porters, stouts) and also bottle format (12-16 oz. vs. 500-750 ml), so that I have different beers every night. Each time I buy beer I just update the list to account for the new additions. This works well for me, because I get to see what's coming up, and part of the enjoyment is the anticipation. For instance, tonight I crack open my growler of OEC Tempus. Tomorrow night is Zombie Dust night. I usually take Friday night off, so Saturday night I'll open a Velvet Merkin. If I look down the list, I can get excited for BA Speedway on Monday, Darkness '13 on Wednesday, Event Horizon next Saturday, and MoaS the following Wednesday. Of course, I'm moving a 2012 CW BBBW and a Lost Abbey Deliverance from the cellar over the next week and a half, and I might go shopping tonight, so tomorrow morning I get to update the list and probably change the order. What fun!

 

Is it cool if I show this to my wife? Just want to give her some perspective

 

This is fantastic

 

Be my guest! I'd be happy to send you my list if you like! If it would help, I have 78 on the "drink now" list and 96 in the cellar.

 

I must be the antithesis of this. I cant cellar a beer to save my life.

For the 3rd straight year I have set out to age a Saint Arnold Pumpkinator so that i can do a side by side
after 1 year.

Failure. over and over and over.
Last year I made it to March.

I purchase beer to drink. Period.

 

Thanks! The system works because it's like having your beer and drinking it too. I get to "have" it because I see it on my list every day. And I get to drink it, because the schedule gives me a rationale for opening something on a random night. Looking forward, for example, I should be opening a Backyard Rye 11 weeks and 3 days from now, which is Sunday, May 3rd. That will most likely be a nondescript Sunday on which I will watch the Mets take on the Nationals while enjoying a world class brew.

That being said, the list will likely change 25 times between now and then, since I'll be shopping, making trades, and adding items from the cellar, including last year's Hunahpu, Dark Lord, Adam from the Wood, and Peche 'n Brett. But that's all part of the fun.

 

That is a bit much...wait...a LOT much. The only context where that even remotely makes sense is making sure you got what you paid for and they didn't pour you a Keystone Lite with a drop or two of food coloring instead of the Rose de Gambrinus, but don't they usually bring bottles to your table at a restaurant to begin with? I've never ordered a bottled beer at table and had it poured before it is served.

At the end of the day, it's "your" beer and a person does what they want with it. Aside what can be considered normal cellaring/aging, I don't think looking at 'em is a great option. As I said in my earlier post, there are some "fuzzy (quite possibly unmanly) feelings" associated with certain beers my wife and I enjoy, but they certainly don't lead to undue anxiety or get in the way of drinking them.

Help beer fulfill its destiny - it wants to be consumed! It even calls out "drink me" now and then...you know, while sitting there in the still of the night quietly admiring them...

 

In a bit of a confession, I too, may be a hunter/hoarder. I hold onto beers that can be cellared, then wait for the right moment that is big enough to drink them, the moment doesn't happen. I keep them to share, but usually we end up at bars for a special draft, not drinking at the house. Also, in some sort of weird dream scenario, I picture that some big time BA drinker or somebody will be at my house and I can show off what I have just sitting around waiting.
I've been collecting/hoarding for a few years...It may be time to start drinking, I know they'll keep producing stuff to enjoy.
*exhale*