Gueze, Lambics and Saisons

Discussion in 'Cellaring / Aging Beer' started by mitch3114, May 2, 2013.

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  1. mitch3114

    mitch3114 Pundit (849) Feb 20, 2012 New York

    How is it that many of these style beers can be "cellared," perhaps "aged" is not the correct term? I am new with these styles as I have really only aged barleywines and some imperial stouts, so far with amazing results.

    But, it seems like the general goal in "aging" is the end result is the beer will taste differently than it did when it was fresh. And when cellaring, you aren't necessarily aging the beer but "keeping" it.

    My question is for these lighter bodied (for the most part) ales, and how many of them have low abv and most of them very little hop presence. How is it that they can "hold up" to cellaring for a couple/few years? As the general rule is that beer has to have a higher abv in order to stand the test of time in the cellar? Do these beers also change in complexity over time?
     
    #1 mitch3114, May 2, 2013
  2. stupac2

    stupac2 Pooh-Bah (2,031) Feb 22, 2011 California
    Pooh-Bah

    I feel like you are very misinformed about a few things. One, cellaring isn't about stasis, it's the same as aging (in practice, at least). It was how people traditionally stored beer before refrigeration, but that doesn't mean it didn't age. That's where the parameters for successful aging come from, the old Belgian/German/English cellars.

    Second, color of the beer isn't a necessary condition for aging (it's not a sufficient one either but that's neither here nor there). Neither is ABV. Lambics age well because they're bottle-conditioned with yeasts and bacteria that continue to munch on residual sugars for a long time, which results in continually developing flavor profiles. I'd also say that the incredibly complex flavor profile leads them to be more forgiving of flaws like oxidation, or perhaps the chemistry means that oxidation builds the flavor rather than dulling it, at least for a while (eventually even the best lambic gets bad).

    Regardless, lambics hold up much better than most beers for much longer than most beers. They're the best candidates to age, frankly.
     
    #2 stupac2, May 3, 2013
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