Ok, so I'm new to this area of the forums in preparation of graduating college soon and maybe, hopefully being to setup my home bar. A random thought hit me....if I get a keg now of something that ages really well...(Founders Imperial, Old Rasputin, etc.)....is there any difference in aging a keg as opposed to bottles? I have my main cellar in my home basement, which is about 60 degrees all year. Would that be a good place to cellar a keg? Is there any special steps I would need to take to age a keg? I figure that if I do this now I'd have a great vintage beer by the time I have a bar setup. Thanks in advance guys.
Craft beer - actually, any bottle conditioned beer - will age in much the same way in kegs as it will in bottles. Many (most?) bottled macros are pasteurized, so they won't change much in bottles, and a crappy beer In a keg will simply age into an old crappy beer, so the question is moot
The keg will cellar perfectly if it cellars well in bottles. This may seem obvious, but as soon as you tap it, it should be consumed sooner than later. It will not get better at that point.
Unless there are sanitation issues, it doesn't matter if it's been tapped or not. The beer neither knows nor cares. I routinely take my heavier homebrews out of the kegerators after a few weeks and let the sit in the basement before tapping them again a few months later. In many cases, the beer continues to improve - obviously, this varies with the style.
This doesn't seem obvious at all. Unless you tap your kegs with a party tapper and pump air into the keg, this makes little to no sense. I guess if your system is unbalanced, the beer will lose or gain carbonation, but otherwise all you are doing is pumping co2 into the headspace to displace the beer you've consumed. Co2 is what is already there. A tapped keg will age just as an untapped keg.
One issue to consider is that you paid a deposit for that keg, and many stores have a time limit for you to return the keg if you expect your deposit money back. So that is something to ask about before buying. At my local shop the guy knows me (knows I have a kegerator) and allows me to keep kegs as long as I need.
i don't consi I don't consider a keg deposit as a factor in the expense of beer. You get the money back. If you just swap out kegs forever and don't get the money back, it's a one time cost that you still will eventually get back. I've bought kegs before from a few places that had a 1 or 2 week window to return a keg. I just asked for a manager and explained to them before ordering that it was for my kegerator, and not for a weekend party, so it would take me longer to return the keg, and that I would be unable to purchase from them if their time limit was not flexible. Each time the store allowed me additional time to return the keg. Unless it's a state law, in the end they want your business and are likely to be flexible if you just ask. But you are right it is definitely something one should ask before buying. It's more likely they will be flexible to make a sale rather than be flexible after the sale has been made.
