How Hill Farmstead beers have aged?

This was a great thread, very interested

 

yea someone tell me how juicy is drinking...im popping it open as soon as it gets a little warmer out

 

I have cellared almost no HF beers, how can you not want to drink them when the brewer thinks that they are ready to drink.

 

The only HF bottles I've been able to get in quantity have been Everett and Clara. Everett showed no appreciable improvement and I believe I enjoyed it best fresh, although I can't say they got noticeably worse. Clara has shown incredible development in bottle and taken on a lot of tart complexity that wasn't there when first bottled and it was a bright, clean, and relatively straightforward saison-grisette-table beer type thing.

 

From my experience almost all of his Saisons tend get more tart with a little age, which personally I love. For my tastes, I also feel that most of his stouts have been a little better 3-6 mths later, but that could just be me.

 

This past weekend, I had a Birth of Tragedy. I bought it in early December and thought it was really boozy upfront, so I wanted to let it develop for six months. It was fantastic. Still bourbon up front, but not as strong. The six months made the beer a lot better.

Also, a friend said Juicy was pouring great still, if that helps.

 

I opened a Juicy on Christmas and it was phenomenal! Far better than the earlier bottles I had.

 

How well does Norma age?

 

Anyone try a civil disobedience #4 recently? I forgot I had this one and there is only one review from the last year.

 

IMO Everett ages terribly, about as bad as any 7%+ abv dark beer I've ever had, and by about 3 months old I'd much rather drink a different beer. Fresh, it is unreal. The saisons age phenomenally well, but the ones with adjuncts (Convivial/Soigne/etc.) seem to kind of drop out their differences (fruit + hibiscus flavors less pronounced) as they get older and kind of just converge to a tart dry beer. This is not a criticism at all - but if you're looking for the pronounced citrus/hibiscus flavor, better to drink fresh.

Was great, like really, really good, in December.

 

Perhaps it's a bottle conditioning thing, as I have heard vintage kegs of Everett are great too (is kegged HF keg conditioned? or force carbed?). I have had a lot of older bottles of it though, and they've been pretty uniformly blah. Not undrinkable or anything, just nothing distinctively good, at all.

P.S., the "O" in IMO stands for opinion

 

Everett, not well (but not horribly). Arthur, not well. They are the only ones I've been able to avoid drinking immediately after purchasing.

 

I'm on the other side of the fence. I think Birth ages terrible. I had a few bottles left from the Dec 2012 release that I tried 6-8 months later and thought they had gone way down hill. Bourbon fell off and the only thing left in the beer was cinnamon that dominated the flavor.

 

I don't live quite as close and probably do not frequent quite as much.

It was the first beer release I went to and was waiting for a reason to open it. I drank my first one on thanksgiving 2012. It has been in my fridge since.

 

Maybe the 2013 batch was different in some way. Interesting, though. I LOVE bourbon, so this bourbon barrel beer craze is right up my alley, but the fresh BOT was too much bourbon. Six months was perfect. I wish I had one million of them in my basement. Yes, one million.

 

I bought a HF crate with a 2011 and 2012 Norma and the 2011 was drinking phenomenal. However, I've also never had a fresh batch so I have nothing to compare it to except other breweries barrel aged wild ales. I would say Norma would be your safest bet for aging HF beers.

 

If you want to hear about specific beers, Shaun has been live tweeting as he's been drinking through his cellar the last couple of days. Some not HF beers, but he's been on a big run of HF tonight and giving a quick recap of how the beers are holding up. Check it out.

 

So I have:
Vera Mae , Clara , sankthans, Everette , aurthur, Anna, twilight, bot, flora, Damon and flora satsuma. Most recently opened a Vera Mae batch from 2012. It's pretty tart I feel it has got a bit funky. Sad to hear the Everette is not doing great gonna drink those soon I guess. Anyone open a Damon recently?