How much is too much?

ISO: People trying to drink down their cellars.

 

I had a similar realization last month when I was moving and almost filled a car just with beer from my cellar. I'm at a bit under 100 bottles now (over half are 12 oz) and plan to avoid adding much to the cellar until I see how some of the beers I have in there now turn out. I think this will be good to determine which beers are actually improving and which ones I don't need to waste buying an extra four or six pack of.

 

At a certain point, if there's no way your drinking pace matches your buying pace then you are a collector. If you're willing to admit to being a collector and that sort of thing makes you happy then go nuts. Otherwise, slow down the buying and start drinking.

Some might say collectors keep the rarer offerings away from those who would enjoy them, but I don't think the impact is that significant for all but the craziest wales.

 

I've been drinking down my cellar for the past 2+ months more than ever. I was close to 250 bottles and am down to around 190 or so right now. Easiest way? Don't buy new beer (or at least scale back your buying quite a bit).

 

I truly started cellaring about 9 months ago. I'm at roughly 130 bottle, a good mix between 12oz and 750s and it is made up mostly of bottles that aren't impossible to find and I purchased most within a year of the bottling date. The way I see it, I will keep buying, collecting, whatever you want to call it faster than I drink for roughly 6 more months. At that point, a lot of my bottles will be at an age where I would want to drink them. Once this happens, my purchasing and drinking rate should be simillar and I won't have an issue. In a perfect world, my cellar would stay steady at ~200 bottles which is where I forsee myself at that time. Seems like an ok plan to me.

 

Too much is when you start saying things like I have more than I can drink. I had about 200 bottles at one point (much less than I see some people have on here) and said, why do I need all of this? I also decided that i prefer a lot of american wilds and BA stouts with little age on them.

 

Q: How much is too much?

A: When you have beer going bad in your cellar due to excessive age.

 

My cellar is around the 1,500 bottle mark. I started with trying to cellar many different brews, and seeing how they all worked out. I still have upwards of 450 different brews in the cellar, but I've started to focus in on creating verticals for between 50-60 of them that I've found I enjoy the most.

So, I'm now drinking down those bottles that I'm not planning to age out much longer. That said, just because I'm not actively working on verticals of some better barleywines, stouts, etc., doesn't mean I'm just going to drink the supply I have now.

My goal is to have a more focused cellar that will still have the one-off variety, but will also have a more core group of brews.

And I don't collect rare beer. I have some in the cellar only by virtue of going to a release, getting a limited beer that then became sought after. Most of what I have has been built out from off the shelf items, some trading and some online orders.

That's not the say that I'm never going to drop a couple hundred bucks on something rare online...but that's definitely the exception to what I'm cellaring.

 

Ok i'm going to start this off with I have an 850 bottle cellar meant for wine that I use for beer. Typically around 400 or so is in a...well I wouldn't say untouchable state, but under development. I found out about aging when I drank a Double Bastard that was 5 years old. It blew my mind how the flavors change and convinced me it was worth the time. I went thru a time where I was thinking thoughts like you are saying. I came up with this. I'm not concerned with having an impressive or massive "collection". I'm concerned with being able to enjoy the beer at its best with my beer geek crew. This takes much testing...erb I mean TASTING! This is the reason I have so many bottles. Buying two bottles of your favorite stout kinda sucks if thats going to be all your able to lay down. Its all so variable when the beer is ready. Which I want to add is solely based on YOUR tastes, not what someone tells you. First, I ALWAYS taste with friends. What fun would it be opening up a 05 IRS and drinking alone, that just sounds depressing. Next, after you lay down something like an Old Rasputin for 2 years its time to open one. Call the friends and make it an event. Ask each other, do you think this needs more time? Yes? Then open another in a year, and so on. This is the advantage of having several, And I don't feel greedy because Its always shared AND I am against shelf clearing. Some people I know buy beer a case at a time (amazing, ideal, and expensive!). I wish lol. I have to space my buying out. SO do you drink an awesome vintage everyday? Answer, absolutely not. You are going to need a much larger cellar than 1000 to reach that tipping point I feel. What fun it is though to pick and choose something epic each weekend! Do you get some build up of older beer? Yes, but in my case its somewhat intentional (ex- i'm not opening my older stone epics till this dec 12th) Then that ties into your "do you intend to ever drink it" question. Absolutely! I have friends that are holding onto bottles saying its going to have to be a super special occasion to open my (blank). Then they come over and i'll open nearly anything. Bottom line, ITS BEER! Drink it have fun with it, and don't take it too seriously! There's always something fun and tasty to fill the place of that one you just drank.
Good tasting!

 

1500, wow. When you were building that up, how often/ much would you buy beer?

 

Although I usually keep ~150 bottles cellared there are only a handful considered "off limits" and the pool gets some circulation in/out...tastings/trades are usually the only things motivating me to pull bottles out though

 

This was built up two ways. The first is to bring home more than you can drink...some goes to the cellar. And I took a couple breaks from drinking at all when my wife and I were planning kids, so during that time the buying continues and the cellar expands.

I've been cellaring intentionally for about 5 years now, and I've found it to be a very rewarding hobby.

 

I do have a cellar that is very heavily weighted toward barleywines, stouts, lambics/sours and old/strong ales. Three of my five shelves are just stouts, barleywines and old ales. The two wine racks are filled with lambics and sours. The other two shelves are more for my shorter-term brews (saison, quad, tripel, dubbel, barrel aged whatever, imperial porters). And some of those have no problem going beyond your 5-year window. I just opened a 2004 De Dolle Dulle Teve, and it was still quite good, despite being an 8-year old tripel.

Are there some that get overlooked? Absolutely. I just did a small purge a couple weeks ago. But I also have a friend (known locally as "the beer goat") who will drink just about anything. So it never really goes to waste. I may just be out some cash on things I never drank. It happens.

I think I've managed the cellar pretty well so far. Some experiments didn't come off as well as hoped, but that's part and parcel of the hobby. If they all aged perfectly, we'd have nothing to talk about in this forum.

And frankly, I can see my barleywine, old ale and lambic sections growing considerably over the next 5 years, since that's where I've had the most success. My stout section will probably remain level because it's already ridiculous.

I will admit, I have collected 1 bottle. I've got a single empty bottle in the cellar that I can't seem to part with. HF CD#1. It was an incredible beer, and I'm positive I'll never see another bottle.

 

My wife would change the locks to the house if I started storing empty bottles too. She already has a difficult time wrapping her mind around my desire to have 70+ different glasses of which none are allowed to go in the dishwasher.

 

Very rewarding indeed. My 'cellar' consists of 15-25 beers, and I love looking at it. I can only imagine what itd be like to lay eyes on your cellar. Keep up the good work.

I need to be less cheap