Cellar Worthy: STOUTs

I'll throw in a few votes, as my cellar mostly consists of imperial stouts. Most bottles listed below were aged between 1-5 years, with an average of ~2 years cellaring time.

Here's what has aged exceptionally well:
Founders Imperial Stout
Thirsty Dog Siberian Night
Bells Expedition Stout
Stone IRS
Hoppin Frog B.O.R.I.S.
Firestone Walker Parabola
Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
North Coast Old Rasputin

Here's what has aged 'okay':
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
Big Sky Ivan the Terrible
Deschutes Abyss
Founders KBS
Weyerbacher Heresy
Terrapin Wake 'n Bake
Brooklyn Black OPS
Sam Adams Russian Imperial Stout

Here's what has aged not so well:
Oskar Blue Ten Fidy
Victory Storm King
Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti
Saranac Imperial Stout
Boulevard Dark Truth

 

+1 GI BCS

 

Bell's Expedition and Founders IS age extremely well.. so do all of Hoppin' Frog's stouts. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout is another good one that ages well. I've had aged Silva Stout and it's the best stout I've had, to date..

 

I'd put my vote down for Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and Dogfish Head World Wide Stout (though with the caveat that it needs at least 5 years of aging).

Bell's Batch 9000 isn't listed as a stout on here (it is on RB) and I'd say it's closer to a stout than any other style. If it counts then it's on my list too. I couldn't stand the stuff fresh but it's actually pretty good at this point. I think it's still got a lot of life left in it.

 

A few of them, yes. Notably black ops and the sam adams. But most I found were better when fresh.

 

Brooklyn BCS
North Coast Old Rasputin
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (6-10 months is all it needs. Mellows out the burnt notes, which I do also enjoy. Just different).

Not a vote, but I hope the Victory Storm King smooths out a bit. Not hot, maybe just too hoppy. We shall see.

 

I'll put a plug for Widmer's KGB '11 RIS. I've couple a couple of sixers from last year that are quite good now!

 

Abyss
WWS
BCBS

 

Put me down for another Abyss and Bourbon County. In fact, with Abyss, I feel like it needs a year on it to even taste like it's supposed to (label even gives a best after date, usually one year from bottling). It's like they're asking us to do the bottle-aging it needs on their behalf.

 

BCBS is amazing aged, had 10, 8 is still (somehow) not been drank yet, but if it is nearly as good then vote twice for them, it is amazing.

 

Parabola, KBS, Abyss

 

You know, I'm not sure this list is useful. Reason being, after opening 16 bottles of Parabola over the course of the year I feel pretty strongly that it ages very poorly. I think we're getting confirmation bias in these polls. Ask long enough and enough people will be pooled and every stout on the planet may very well be voted for.

Having said that, and I know this is a bit late, but I think asking the opposite, "What stout do you think ages poorly" in a seperae thread is useful as well. Maybe then make a master list of everything that gets 2 or more votes either way? So, with my -1 for Parabola you'd have something like:

....
(2) Thirsty Dog Siberian Night

(2) Sam Adams Imperial Stout​

(2 for, 1 against) Firestone Walker Parabola​

or

(2/1) Firestone Walker Parabola​

...just a thought.​

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Edit: You could even get more precise, and ask 3 questions: Does it get better, stays the same, or worse with aging and then show the data as (A/B/C) without any +/- signs, just how people voted.​

Ted​

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True, if we get enough feedback the ones that there is consensus on that age well should bubble to the top. Let's hope a lot more people chime in here.

On it getting complicated, yeah - the more I think about how to poll this the more complicated it gets. I tend to over-think things...!

 

+1 for Parabola and Stone IRS.