Drink Fresh or age?

Before you attempt to age any beer you should ask yourself a couple questions. Why am I aging this beer and what do I hope to gain from aging? Unless you have an answer to those questions I would not go too overboard with the aging.

I do very much enjoy an properly cellared beer and think there is great benefit that goes along with aging the right beers but I believe that most beers do not improve with age. Barleywines, Imperial Stouts and so on are usually safe bets but not all of them age gracefully, dare I say the majority of them really do not benefit.

Aging DIPAs can be a point of contention on this site. Some will advise that with age a DIPA will become a Barleywine. IMO the overwhelming majority of DIPA lack the malt backbone to hold up the beer once the hop flavor diminishes and becomes less prominent. The DIPAs that do age well, I suppose these "become barleywines", are the ones that straddle the line between DIPA and Barleywine to begin with and have a malt profile that can carry a beer after the hop flavor recedes. IMO Hoptimum is best consumed fresh.

 

You should drink one straight off the bat if you have never had it. Then decide if you want to buy more to age.

 

IMHO, if you have a regular and barrel aged version of the same beer, I tend to drink the BA version sooner then later, and age the other. Example, Great Divide Old Ruffian. Regular Ruff...I like it aged, upfront its more of a triple IPA then a barley wine (same with say...Hog Heaven from Avery) but once you let the hops die off a bit i blossoms into a wonderful barley wine. Barrel Aged Old Ruffian...granted I can't really comment on aged bottles, as its only a few weeks old, but fresh this beer is fantastic. Some other locals have commented on aging some of the barrel aged b-wines like Dry Dock Bligh's and say the whisky flavors tend to fade a bit, sometimes rather quickly. This could probably be parallel to stout/BA stout as well. The BA version IS already "pre-aged" since it sat in those barrels for a few months to a year or longer already.

The best bet with the cellar game, is to buy 2-3. Drink one fresh, take notes, and revisit 6-12 months later (this is why I like 3 bottles over 2). Especially if its a yearly or regularly produced beer, makes it even easier to test against a fresh side by side. See what you like best, and go from there!

 

Perfectly said. I go 3 deep.