Beginning to Cellar?

I'd skip cellaring the 4Beans (unless you don't like coffee), Nitro WUtD, and all the Great Lakes stuff. Haven't tried aging the clipper or Nosferatu, but blackout is best within the first year IMO, and Nosferatu is hoppy and meant to be consumed fresh. Not saying my word is law by any means, experiment and have fun with it. Likewise as people said, don't get carried away.
Cheers!

 

Old Stock ages magnificently in my experience. If you can still find some 2014 on the shelves (we've still got some up here), I'd grab a few of those also. CW Barleywine ages tremendously too, though you'd need to trade for it. Backwoods Bastard gets interestingly different after a year-ish, too.

In general, I find that fruit/adjunct stouts start to lose their fruit flavor after a while (though I had a year old Lindley Park that had just as much fruit flavor as when it was fresh), and some beers just don't age well (I don't like what time does to Dragon's Milk, for instance).

Most importantly, though, is the ride. If you want to try to age it and don't mind that it might get worse rather than better, do it. Over time you'll learn what styles you like to age and which you don't. Cheers!

 

Best advice.

Start snooping around here. You'll find several "inexpensive cellarable beers" threads. Start off with those and see how they taste after 6, 12, 18, 24 months. After you get through fresh, 6 months, and 12 months with some more inexpensive cellar beers, you'll start to get a feel for what age does to different flavors. Then you'll probably start adding more expensive beers. You'll also want to make sure you bought enough of the first beers that you can still try them at 18, and 24 months, maybe even longer depending on what it is. Something like Bigfoot, Old Stock Ale, and similarly priced cellarable beers are great for that, buy a couple 4 packs and drink them over a couple years.

As you build up your cellar and drink out of it, you'll just get even better ideas for what age does and what you want to age according to your palate.

Oh, and notes, keep notes, at least at first. That way you can be more objective about how things changed. It doesn't have to be a full page review, but at least some basic notes.

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And just a quick side note. I almost never see it mentioned on here, but Trader Joe's Vintage Ale is a great, inexpensive beer to cellar. It's $5 for a corked and caged 750! It's a Belgian Strong Dark brewed by Unibrau. Fresh, it's ok. Very meh. I used to buy a bottle or two each year, but when I started aging stuff, I figured this one is cheap, might as well try it as well. Two years is a sweet spot for this beer for me. I usually buy about 4 each year now. It's super cheap for a great beer, and it's fun to share with people that aren't huge beer geeks. They are amazed that you held onto a beer for two years, much less that it's that good. And it's a relatively cheap way to get people into the mindset that beer can age just like they think wine can, as well as a great way to start your cellar if you have a Trader Joe's nearby.

 

Buy a beer fridge or don't age beers. 72-77 is way too warm IMO to call it "cellaring". That's pretty much equivalent to buying beer from a crappy dimly lit liquor store and calling that cellared. Just my 2¢