Drinking your cellar.

I have a small (12-15 bottles) cellar that consists mostly of rare or sought after stouts, sours, barleywines, strong ales. I just hold 'em for special occasions. A few are being held intentionally to see how they age (Surly Five and Syx, Deschutes/HOTD collabo, Dark Lord 2012, Boulevard Saison Brett) but the rest are just great beers that I want to save so that my good friends can get a taste. I do hang onto Deschutes Reserve Series beers, since they have a recommended "best after" date.

Amassing a huge cellar is crazy, unless you have means and you are drinking and replacing often.

I cringe when newer beer geeks talk about aging Hopslam or Celebration.

 

Sure.

Most people don't have temperature controlled or even temperature stable, cool, dark places to store their beer. Therefore, their beers are not being cellared under optimal conditions, even if said person knows to achieve as close to stable storage as possible.

Further, most people who are into cellaring don't know enough (or have enough bottles to taste routinely over time), particularly paired with the uncertainty of how THEIR cellaring conditions will impact their beer, to accurately pinpoint when they should be opening their bottles. Now, certainly sometimes they'll get it right, and sometimes they'll open too early, so it would be impossible to make a sweeping generalization about these folk... Except... That amongst people who cellar a LOT of beer, the prevalence of collections too vast to consume on or even around any hypothetical best date means that a vast proportion of those beers will be aged far beyond an ideal age.

I'm not saying people will derive less happiness from their beers for having aged them, indeed, they may get a great deal more happiness from this process. I'm not saying most beers will be bad or undrinkable. I'm just saying that it's hard to age beer well.

However, certainly there are exceptions.

 

I wish I had optimal conditions (I don't. Apparently Arizona doesn't believe in cellars/basements). My beer storage usually hovers around 70-80. So I try not to keep anything past 1-2 years. There's only a few that I am keeping longer than that just to see what happens. As I have only been cellaring about 2 years (one year more seriously) I can't comment on how my long term cellaring turns out. Once I have a home (and not an apartment) I plan on getting a large beer fridge that I can control the temp on and I'll set it at 55.

I'd love something like this but $6,500 is a bit steep at this point in time (or in the foreseeable future)

 

Holy crap I want that!! Does it come with all that Bud Light too?? Sign me up!

 

Look at all the Bud Light Golden Wheat. True cellar whale.

 

I have been debating with this for the last month or so. I probably have about 7 cases of beer in the "cellar" and temp controlled beer fridge. I am thinking though the fridge might be better used for homebrew fermentation and I could save a LOT of money this winter by trying to drink through a lot of it. Since it's finally getting cold around here the bigger beers are sounding pretty nice. I think I would still keep a case or two of stuff I would like to keep aging but the amount of space and money I would save by drinking it all up seems pretty promising.

 

Excuse me if you were just trolling/posing, and I didn't pick up on it, but 2007, much less every non-estate harvest ale (which didn't even exist in 2007) was not waxed.

 

Well said. I endorse this post.

 

Almost mistook the Budweiser tap handle as a vault lever.

 

Yes the picture has a bunch of Bud stuff in it, but if you're a business trying to take a photo to sell your cooler are you gonna go out and spend like $50 on that crap or the thousands any of us would spend to fill that thing up?

I just want a large, walk-in beer cooler that I can set the temp on. The added awesomeness of it being a kegerator is just a bonus.

 

I feel like drinking any beer over 5 years of age is just pure novilty. No one I know had a beer that was at it's best past 6-7 years

 

Hey man, we weren't making fun of you for posting at all. At least I wasn't. I think the idea is awesome and if I had the funds and room I'd purchase that thing in a heartbeat. Just poking some fun at the beer inside, that's all.

 

I'm all for cellaring. I'm just trying to be smart about it. If my Logsdon Seizoen Bretta states on the label "best by 5/2017" I'm all for putting a few down for later.
Tell Hair of the Dog all of their vintage Adam & Fred are bad. I even have a DFH 120 back in the cellar someplace that's not going anywhere anytime soon. And the person who got my '10 Abyss in a trade recently isn't complaining that it's too old.
It has gotten out of hand though. My problem is I have a buying problem. Even my very understanding wife has started to suggest enough already. I have many beers in my cellar I've never had. I need to work on that but I have to stop buying the fresh hop stuff out there right now. Not the time to dip into my cellar and that's the problem. There always seems to be some great beer out there not for cellaring that needs to be enjoyed now.
I either need to drink more or have more friends.

 

Actually, ALL beer drops off after being cellared "too long."

 

I appreciate all of this, and agree with your articulate answer - well said! You have compelling points, sir!

One thought I would contribute would be BAs who "cellar" beers for verticals. Verticals are an interesting way to do a simple experiment with cellaring, as they provide a spectrum from which to see how beers have fared in one's "cellar". Of course not all of the beers in the vertical will be peaking - but the experience is easy, approachable and worthwhile for most.

 

Most of the beers I have in my cellar are for drinking, but I don't want to drink them alone. I need more beer friends.

 

All of my beers are for drinking - eventually. I share your sentiment. Good beer is for sharing & most of my friends are as old as I am and don't share the passion.

 

Sure, everyone says all of their beer is for drinking, but it seems like a LOT of people (don't mean to single you out) aren't being honest with themselves.

How long would it take you to drink everything in your cellar if you stopped buying beer entirely? Probably quite a while for some of the people out there. But now let's get real, you're not going to stop buying entirely. We probably all have a bit of a buying problem (as you call it), and noone wants to drink only cellared beer, because of course eventually (even frequently) you're going to want that IPA or that seasonal instead of reaching for yet another Imperial Stout or Barleywine from the cellar. Plus as long as you're a beer geek there's always going to be new sexy releases, new breweries, new distro to your area, and 100 other things that you're not going to be able to resist.

So taking all that into account lets assume you cut down your purchasing as far as you're actually capable of. Now how long is it going to take you to drink down that cellar? So, are you actually cellaring? Or are you hoarding?

 

One year ago I had a "cellar" of 5 bottles. Now I have close to 200. Spent too much money, but it's been fun. I got over the habit of saving awesome things for special occaisions...now for the most part I drink what I want when I want. For example, a couple months ago I had a bottle of CBS one Tuesday night. I'd had a great day skipping work and playing golf, and it was an awesome cap to that.

I still have way too many. A few bottles are earmarked for tastings coming up in the next month or so. Otherwise, I'm trying to drink it down. It's pretty cool to have such a wide selection, and the majority of what I have can take some time in the cellar.

My problem is that I have one larger-size dorm fridge that I keep around 50 degrees for cellaring. The rest of the bottles I have are sitting in the basement...which is at 65 in the winter and 70-80 in the summer. Too hot. So, I've stocked the fridge with the beers I have an eye on storing for a really long time (Bigfoot, BCS, Black Tuesday, some Loons, etc.) Everything else is sitting in the basement with an eye on drinking before too long...or, I need a bigger fridge.

I'm also trying not to buy as much. That's great in theory, but it's hard to resist in Vermont. Plus my beer guy is getting me a case of '12 BCS. And Backwoods Bastard comes out soon..

What I need to do is organize some cellar-emptying gatherings of family of friends!

 

It's simple buddy invite a bunch of us over and lets put in some work on that cellar.