How's Your Beer Cellar?

Personally, I like to keep a very modest cellar. If possible, I will buy three of each beer I intend to have age. This gives me the opportunity to drink one fresh and age two for the desired amount of time. It's always great to experience a beer both fresh and with some age on it.

 

It's really the major dilemma of being able to acquire great beer. Right now I have several BCS Variants that I'd love to drink, but I'd like to see some of them develop in the bottle.

If you can, always get more than one. But that's easier said than done - availability and cost.

I started small last year, and now I have a pretty sizable cellar. Be as patient as you can be.

Happy collecting!

 

Rent storage space at a Wine storage facility. Then you have to go there during business hours just to get the beer. Otherwise, buy multiples and get some control .

Another option, get so many beers in your cellar you loose track of what you have. Then you're almost certain to age some stuff, even if you get into your stash. A few months ago, I was showing some of my beers to a friend and I found a bottle of Blabaer I didn't know I had. <--- this is a true story.

 

Bahaha, I'm lucky if I can keep a beer for longer than a week. I did leave several RIS bottles at my sister's place (over 300 miles away) the last time I was there hoping get some age on them. CSB

 

My experience is that tripels don't vary much with age.

 

Buy more beer for everyday drinking... I keep a beer fridge stocked, and it helps distract me from my cellar... Or get amnesia and don't let anyone tell you about your cellar for a year or two.

 

My current cellar is at about a dozen each of 750s and bombers, and almost everything in there is something I've either tried fresh at some point, or have a second bottle awaiting to be sampled fresh. There are some more hard-to-get bottles in there, but there are also some really accessible types that I have in there just for shits and giggles. Things like Duvel and Chimay Blue.

I do have a couple that I haven't tried fresh, so the second I don't have something tasty sounding to drink in my fridge, those will be at jeopardy.

The best way to resist any temptation to crack cellar beer open is to keep a ready supply of good beer in your fridge. This works even better if some of those fridge beers are duplicates of your cellar beers. I also help myself by storing my cellar beers in a contoured shipping case in a dark and hard-to-access corner of the basement. Making them harder to access just gives me one more hurdle before actually opening a bottle.

 

I am currently trying to as well, although a different type of beer. I am currently trying to age Brooklyn IS (7), 2011 Ten Fidy (3), Yeti 2011 (2), Bigfoot (15), Founders RIS (18), KBS (12), and Goose island BCS (10). I bought plenty (if I could) to make sure I will age them. Obviously these beers are not insanely rare or expensive. I put the number of each I have in parentheses. I have actually done relatively well not drinking any of these, but that is probably because I am buying more beer then I drink. I usually buy to much and have to focus on drinking IPA's before they start loosing their flavor.


I plan on drinking each 1 about every 3 months, except for the BCS, yeti, and ten fidy which I want to only drink every 6 months. I started to prepare my aging about 3 months ago. I am really excited to see how they change.

 

My suggestion is make your cellar a place you rarely visit in the house. Case in point mine is a closet in the basement that houses our circuit breaker. Only time I ever need to open it is when I want to add more beer or when the power goes out.

Out of sight out of mind.

 

Lots more info here:
http://beeradvocate.com/community/forums/cellaring-aging-beer.41/

 

buy more than you can drink!!!!

 

How's my beer cellar?

Full...never full enough...

 

Mines grown in the last 6 months quite a bit. Now sitting on about 40 large format bottles and about 2 cases on 12ozers ( KBS, BCBS, CW PM, CW BBA Stout, Red Poppy)

I just buy more than I drink and rarely open anything big by myself

 

im not much for aging beer because i like to drink, it but i am going to get a case of stone IRS because i love it and i hear its best aged. i will probably cellar more in the future when i am not renting and i can build the basement cellar home tavern of my dreams!

 

I ran into a problem when I started mine a few months ago - I used to only buy beer to ultimately drink, and drink relatively soon. Wasn't concerned with aging the beer, or having an 'aesthetically pleasing' selection of beer for people to look at...but once I started the cellar I did a 180 and became protective over my beer, a lot more choosey over what I drank, didn't want to go for things I only had one of, etc. I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do is, when you buy something, buy whatever you want to drink soon and then an additional one to cellar. The one you plan to age, mark the year on it and when you go into your cellar anything without one of those year indicators is fair game. Because I am starting to get a pretty good variety down there, if I see that I don't have a particular beer I want fresh (but I have an older one), I just move on to a different beer of the same style.

Another solution could potentially be that if you want to age something, buy a bomber of it. At least for me, I don't like drinking bombers unless I have someone around to share one with and plan to do some drinking that night...so if I buy a bomber, it's going to sit around anyways.


My cellar probably has about 200 beers in it at the moment...I'd say I have about 15 different tripels (30-40 total), 10 different quads (25-30), 10 dubbels (25-30), 10-15 other strong Belgian ales (30-40), a few different porters/stouts (30-40), and some other misc brews. I moved most of my wheat beers/pale ales/etc. to the downstairs fridge with a cooler temperature, but most of those aren't good to 'cellar' or age anyways.

 

Just started cellaring. Right now they're down in a storage unit below my building. (It's not temperature controlled, so I may end up rethinking that in the summer.) Out of sight, out of mind.

I also have a spreadsheet that I keep with low/high dates for when I deem a bottle "ready." It has some auto-formatting to color the beers based on where they are in the aging process. When I get tempted to go drink one, I take a look at the sheet - if nothing is colored green, I move on to the fridge. Helps keep me honest (most of the time).

 

Get a kegerator for everyday drinking, then only dip into the cellar when there's a reason.