I am relatively new to craft beer, and have never had Fuller's Vintage before, though I have seen it mentioned here several times. I was wondering how rare is it to find older vintages, as a store by me has almost an entire case of the 2011 still on the shelf.
Not common but not super rare. I had a vertical a year ago that was a lot of fun. It is an affordable beer that ages decent, although I wouldn't go over 4 years personally.
They do produce a fair number of them, depends on the year they can do up to about 400bbl of it I think. Well worth getting and like erik says they should be good for 4 years. The recipe changes a little bit year to year, for some reason this site doesn't reflect that but all the beers are in the same, small, ball park. That said a lot of beers change year to year depending on availability of ingredients so I guess it's not much different from many beers in that regard. TLDR: buy some.
Wish this would let you edit posts for a bit longer... I've only had a couple of them and they were similar so I assume the rest are similar too, if anyone knows different chime in
Good but not mind blowing, if they are kept fairly cool I'd grab 2 or 3 if you have the space. The box is nice, at least you know it hasn't been UV'd to death. I drank a 2009 not long ago and it was good. I still have a 2008 that I'm betting is over the hill (it was stored at 70F for 2 years! haha) but I'm going to open soon.
Who cares how rare it is? It's a phenomenal beer that ages really well. Unless they're charging an ungodly amount, buy a bunch, drink some now, cellar some for later. If you like old ales, you won't regret it.
Thanks everyone, I bought a good amount, will definitely cellar some. Just was wondering how common it was to find older vintages around.
I found a bottle of the 2011 at TW 4 months back or so and now all they have is the 2012 on the shelves.
Recently found a stash of 2010 in a local shop. Not too expensive so bought two bottles. I had one last weekend and it was very good!
