Imperial Stout Verticals

most say 5 years.

 

Funny, those are both my go to's for building verticals.

 

Base it on however many you're willing to buy & how many you are willing to open each year. i.e. if you are willing to buy 6 Parabolas and want to open 2 per year, you should plan on doing a 3 year vertical.

There's no correct answer beyond this. If the beer is clearly falling off at year 5 then just have a party and drink them all.

 

Different beers handle aging differently. That's the whole point of doing a vert, is to discover this for yourself. I would say it depends more on how many people you are inviting to your tasting, coz if it goes beyond a couple years, you sue as hell won't be able to drink em all urself!

Parabola 3 years out is gonna b drinking differently than abyss 3 years out, which will be drinking WAY differently than a BA Yeti. And the best part of doing verts is how surprising the results are. For instance, having done a pretty deep vert of parabola, BA speedway, and a ton of non BA or BA blended stouts (oak aged yeti, stone RIS) etc, my hands down favorite was Big Bad Baptist. 2 years out, this beer was drinking better than all of em combined. IMHO I be hard pressed to chose between a year or two old BBB vs parabola or an abyss.

 

Right now, I have about 5 years (+/- 1 year) going of Expedition, FIS, CW BBS, CW BB Cherry Stout, KBS, and BCBS. These aging experiments are taking up about half of my cellar space right now, so hopefully I can drink through these with friends over the next year.

From a generalized view on these verticals (from reading other cellaring posts), it seems that Expedition and FIS go the distance for quite awhile. KBS gets widely varying opinions on fresh vs. aged, and BCBS reviews suggest that the beer is best around 4 or 5 years. One of the CW owners was telling me CW BBS peaks around 4 years with a quick drop-off from there.

I'm looking forward to seeing if these opinions hold up or if my taste buds judge differently. Then hopefully I'll know how long I want to age all these in the future

 

They've only bottled 4 years of Parabola, that's considered deep? As for BA Speedway, not too sure if it's bottled every year so how deep did you go? 03? 04? Just curious...

 

Not necessarily. Martyn Cornell says:

 

Yeah, that is definitely something people claim is the case.

 

I'm currently working on a 10-year Stone IRS vertical. Did a 5-year last year with a couple buddies and got widely disparate opinions on what worked and what didn't. The issue was not every bottle was kept in the exact same why by the exact same person.

There was a marked increase in awesome up to year 3 and then years 4 and 5 got mixed reviews.

With that said, most stout verticals have been mediocre at best and take up too much space.

 

Whoop typo good call. Deep verts was meant to apply to the non BAed beers.i like to stock the cellar with yeti, stone IRS, old raspy, regular speedway, cuz it's always fun to see how those change over time too. Some get real good.

Have had the '04, '09, '12 BA speedways and last 3 parabolas, so ya i guess not that deep.

 

How was the 04 BA Speedway? I've only had the 09 and 12...Gonna pop open the BA Kopi this weekend before the Firestone Walker Invitational...

 

'04 was good. bout what you would expect from that old of a beer. Felt a bit thinner, less carbo, tasted sweeter, with less coffee. Most barrel character was faded. Real good, but id rather have it fresh to a couple years old. I think BA speedway is great, but so is good ole regular speedway. It didn't do a complete 180 based on the BAing like some of their other BA offerings do. My personal fave out of all the BA alesmith is their wee, only cuz it totally turns into a different beer.

So jealous you got that KOPI. Enjoy it dude!!!

 

As has been mentioned, different stouts age differently. For most stouts, I think the sweet spot comes within the first few years and sometimes as early as a few months, whereas some rare exceptions hit their stride after more like 6-10 years (this is more the case with old ales and barleywines, though). In any case, the "sweet spot" is highly subjective, and you may enjoy a particular beer at a different age than I prefer.

Having said that, I think Parabola is just as great fresh as with a couple of years on it, but vastly different. I probably wouldn't age that one more than 2-3 years. Abyss ages gracefully and, imo, gets better with age for many years. I was fortunate enough to have a vert of '08-'12 this past November, and the '08 was the clear winner of the night-just wonderful. Having said that, there's a lot of variation year-to-year with Abyss ('10, for instance, was a particularly good year and was better fresh than many aged vintages I've had). Stone IRS is another that has come up a couple of times. It's accessibility and low pricepoint make this one of the few beers I buy by the case. I think this one improves hugely over the first year, then levels off for a couple of years before going downhill around the 3-4 year mark.

 

I just did a five year Stone IRS vertical in April. I had 9-13 and both odd year beers. Our group voted '11 the "winner" everyone agreed that was their number 1 or 2, after that '09 was a close second. Follwed by 13, 12, 10 was an easy dead last.

 

All of the bottles about which everyone speaks are wonderful fresh, and, when I say fresh for a stout I pretty much mean within a year. After that, and this is just my opinion based on my taste and my experience, they ALL fall off and in all respects "weaken." Aged beer is simply oxidized beer. Whether it tastes good or not is SUBJECTIVE; it depends on YOUR taste. How much oxidation (aging) is good for any particular beer is based on what you want.
Too sweet? Too much coffee? Too much chocolate? Age it for a while and all of those will fall off - fast!
Too much alcohol? Despite some opinions and urban legends, the alcohol does not change or "go down."

Every brewer I know (and I know many across the country and world) say that they release a beer when they believe it should be released. And, when they say release, they mean should be consumed! I have never met a brewer in any discussion about "old beer" or "aging beer" or "ageability of beer" that said that they intend for a beer to be aged. (Yes, they all now put something on their labels because we want to see it and because it sells beer. The more we age the more we buy. I suspect that the labeling and "indication" of aging is more marketing and giving us what we want than an admission that the beer is going to improve!)

I also have aged beer and continue to age beer. I'm just as bad as everyone else. However, having experienced several verticals of dozens of beers, including the ones about which you ask, I can say without question or hesitation, FOR ME, they are all better fresher. Sure, keep some for a vertical because it's simply fun! That's the truth of it. It's fun and we can all get into a discussion about it. However, the older ones will never (IMO) be anywhere near as fresh, vibrant, bright and full of flavor and nuance as the fresher. (Of course, if you like the taste of a dirty ashtray, age the hell out of them!)

Just my opinion.

 

I prefer 12oz bottles for verticals. Bombers take up a lot more space!