After a bad Michigan Cherry harvest, and an altered release schedule, Founders is retiring their Cerise. Their tart, but husky cherry beer is being replaced with the Rübæus. What does a little cellar time do fruity beers like these? Can I age some, or maybe just some to hold on to 'til summertime?
Having never aged this I can't say with 100% certainty but I don't see age being kind to her. I would say buy some if you like it, keep it cold (like fridge cold instead of cellar) and drink steadily, if you feel like it's falling off the cliff than step up your consumption. That is the sort of beer I could see changing quickly so I wouldn't want to put some away and pull one out in 6 months and discover I have a pile of crap on my hands. When was this last brewed anyway? Must be 6 months or more already, right?
I totally disagree. I did this experiment by accident this summer. Went into a local shop and picked up 2 packs from different parts of the store. Turns out one was a year old. The age has caused the red color to fade and the sweetness up front is gone as well. It has been replaced with a tart dryness and finished like a slice of sour cherry pie. 5 out of six people in the room preferred the aged bottle (the sixth isn't a beer lover but likes ciders so her preference towards a sweeter cherry beer didn't surprise me). I went back and bought the last 2 packs of the aged vintage and have a bunch of this year's batch in the celler to experiment with. Definitely worth it.
I did the same thing, and I definitely agree with you. I don't know how it was stored, though, because I had been to this store several times before and not seen it, then it magically arrived one day with a bottle date of a year ago. I picked up some Rübæus this year as well, so now I'm curious to see if that ages as well as the Cerise.
I found a small liquor store near my office that still has multiple 4 packs of Cerise gathering dust. I think the date was March 2012. (No, no FBS etc...trust me I looked high and low). I didn't think age would improve this one but based on what I am reading here I might just take a gamble and grab one as I always liked this beer and was sorry to see it retired. Will report back if I do.
