Marshall Zhukov Cedar, anybody aging this?

Just opened one last weekend at a bottle sharing where we drank the Cedar next to the original. Pretty unanimous that the Cedar was the favorite. I have never tried it with any age, but I would be worried the cedar would fade on it...which is what made it so delicious.

 

The Cedar is so weird, it seemed really peppery while also being woody, I liked it a lot more than regular Zhukov's (which is something close to diabetes in a bottle). As I always say when these questions are asked, if you only have one bottle drink it fresh. Aging without a baseline is kinda pointless. And really, with something as weird as this you ought to try it fresh to enjoy maximum weirdness, wouldn't want any of the weird to melt away.

 

I agree. Regular Zhukov HAS to be shared due to the sweetness. The Cedar does a great job at cutting that sweetness and making it more drinkable. Having said that...love both.

 

I don't think this is necessarily the best advice, especially if you can't get another bottle of the same beer. If there's a consensus that a beer improves with age, I would just want to maximize the bottle I have. It's not all about being able to note the changes over time; instead, I just try to get the most out of each bottle I have/can afford. And sometimes, that means aging my only bottle.

 

It's a game of probabilities, though. p% of people say it improves, 1-p% people don't, and you don't know which population you'll be in a priori. So if the enjoyment gained/lost by aging is e, (which can be positive or negative, and you're expressing it as a percentage, so it ranges from -1 (removes all enjoyment) up to +infinity, though practically it'll be ~1 most of the time, which doubles your enjoyment) you're looking at something like:

Code:

p*e - (1-p) = 0

or

Code:

p*(1+e) - 1 = 0

The comparison of the equation to 0 is to see what you should do (if e is greater than the result, age, if not, open). Picking some numbers, say 60% of people think it'll improve, 40% think it declines (or stays the same:

Code:

0.6*(1+e) - 1 = 0
0.6*e = 0.4
e = 2/3

So if people are split 60-40 in favor of aging, you'd need to expect aging to increase your enjoyment by about 2/3 in order to come out on top (on average). I expressed e a bit weirdly, but since enjoyment is 1 this means you'd need to expect aging to increase your enjoyment by about 66%. I know this is being weirdly mathematical about this discussion, but I don't think that ever happens. I really liked a BCBS '08 I had, but do I think it brought me 66% more enjoyment than fresh? Doubtful. Plus you'd need to account for opportunity costs of holding onto the bottle.

Anyway, this has been a long-winded way of saying "I disagree, I think if anything people are entirely too predisposed to aging, even if the beer does improve based on consensus."

 

Have you ever had anyone send you a fresh CCB Humidor IPA? Did you like the spicy character the cedar added?

If you answered yes to those, I would drink it now. If you answered "no" and "I think I would like it" to the two questions, then I would drink it now. If you answered "no" and "I do not think I would care for that" then let it sit a while to let the edge from the cedar get smoothed out.

Of course, if you have more than one, drink one now. If you love it drink the other. If you like the mouthfeel but not the spiciness from the cedar, let it sit or trade the other.

 

i want to drink with you.

 

You probably recognize that it's a matrix of probabilities, based on the different amounts a beer may be thought to improve (For example: A thinks it improves a little; B thinks it improves a little more; C thinks it's amazing with some age) over different time periods.

Further, it's wholly unfair to assume that any result which isn't "e" (positive enjoyment) is therefore -1. -1 is approximately a skunked beer that's a drain pour in your model, correct? Well, that's unlikely to happen unless you get unlucky and/or wait too long. And, a beer doesn't immediately become a -1 just because you go anywhere beyond the hypothetical "optimal" aging time. Perhaps I would have preferred the fresh flavors, but it would be unfair to characterize that experience as a -1.

Here's a practical situation: I bought a bottle of Victory Storm King. Let's assume it's the only one I can reasonably get. A significant % of people think that it improves with age. If I give it 1 year in my closet/cellar, it's unlikely to skunk. At that point, there's a small probability it skunks. There's a decent probability I will enjoy it more than I enjoyed the fresh bottle. But there is some upside, and not too much downside.

The opportunity costs are certainly relevant. But many people get extra enjoyment out of keeping a cellar, and some will get additional satisfaction and enjoyment out of a beer that they waited on (basically, the phenomenon where people's opinions of experiences tend to lean toward justifying the amount of work they put in; this can cut the other way [i.e. too high of expectations], but my non-rigorous understanding of the matter is that the former is more common).

I think it's far from open and shut.

 

I'm on my phone, but I didn't assume it went to 0, I assumed it stayed the same and therefore canceled out. Well, it would be on both sides of the equation. So you'd get:

Code:

p·(E+e) + (1-p)·E = E

I just canceled the E's. Thinking about this now I'm not totally sure that's right, but it's what my intuition tells me is right.

And yes, that's the simplified version. I initially conceived of it being an integral over all e values, but that would depend on the e curve, so why bother. I think the toy model makes my point, though, at least if my response to your critique is on base.

 

I think another "mistake" you are making is assuming that the beer will definitely be enjoyed fresh, or at least not probably accounting for that there is a probability less than 1 that I will enjoy it fresh.

You should age it for Z time, if the probability you will get Y enjoyment times Y enjoyment is greater than your expected utility from drinking it now.

Drinking a beer now, my expected utility is: P x E, where P is the probability I will enjoy it (let's just assume BA's crowd-sourcing to be an accurately portrayal of this probability), and E is the enjoyment I will get out of it.

If you want to aggregate the enjoyment matrix and call it 1, that's fine. And even for a top 100 beer, the probability of fresh enjoyment is maybe 75%, depending on a bunch of factors?

Aging it for X time, my expected utility is [p x e] - [(1-p) x e'], where p is the probability I will enjoy it aged for X time; e is the enjoyment I would thus get; and e' is the enjoyment I would get if either the aging goes against my tastes or the beer skunks.

So, the question becomes: [p x e] - [(1-p) x e'] > P x E?

I'll throw out some numbers. let's say P = .75 and E = 1, so the right side is .75
Let's say I'm aging a high ABV stout without too much hops or real coffee. I'm new to aging, but let's say there's an aggregate 60% chance I get a 1.5 utility and a 40% chance I get an (average of) .3 utility.

I don't think that a -1 utility is fair, because the money spent on the alcohol is a sunk cost either way, and a drainpour should have a 0 utility. Sure, you get a couple of "bad" tastes, but you also get another tick, so I think 0 is a fair approximation.

If I plus in those numbers on the left side, I get: [.6 x 1.5] - [.4 x .3] = .9 - .12 = .78
So, the left side would be .78, and the right side would be .75. It's close, but there's a slight edge to aging in this example.

Now, did I make sure I came out ahead in my example? Absolutely. But I think these numbers are reasonable and express that it's a close decision. I actually think that the .3 utility may be quite a bit low.

This is without considering opportunity costs, which I briefly addressed above -- I think it may not be a significant negative for some people, and of course the individual can/should accordingly adjust.

 

My head hurts now. Thanks, guys.

 

I'm actually not really assuming that, I'm assuming that you'll get some enjoyment out of it (E) and that will be modified by e after aging. It's definitely simplistic, but your model is actually pretty much the same as mine, mine just has fewer variables because I simplified some things (basically assuming that aging never reduced utility, which actually makes things more favorable toward aging, and turning P*E into one variable that's then being modified). My goal was basically to find how much you'd need an increase in enjoyment given the odds of that increase, hence the simplifying assumptions I made. I chose that goal because my argument is that you actually need pretty high odds of a beer "improving" to make it worth it for reasonable expectations of improvement.

Basically, I think even a 50% increase is unlikely for pretty much any beer in a normal timeframe. The only beers I've had aged that I thought really got better have been lambics, and only then after 10+ years (at which point opportunity costs become very real). Getting that kind of enjoyment after 1 or 2 years? Maaaaaybe. But it's not likely in my mind. And even if you did, you'll never know! So it's kind of pointless either way.

Anyway, this has been fun. I'm glad someone else on BA likes math stuffs.

 

By the way, working out that equation had this result for me:
pE + pe + E -pE = E --> pE - pE + pe + E = E --> pe + E = E --> pe = 0. Which makes sense that it'd be a neutral decision (all else equal) where the probability of additional enjoyment times the extra enjoyment is 0. Of course, that's a weird setup because it implies that there's either a zero probability it improves or else 0 enjoyment improvement.

But, yeah. Maybe setting "enjoyment fresh" = 1 would rectify that issue.

 

Oh, derp, I didn't simplify right in my head on the train. I think that my first equation needs to be set equal to 1, not 0. But then that (pretty obviously) will just end up with 1=1, so you really do need e' to be negative, otherwise any increase at all will mean you should age it. I guess the results of this are more pro-aging than I initially thought (and now I'm wondering why setting it equal to 0 made sense to me yesterday).

 

Yeah, it stands to logic that if you determine that aging is never bad that you should always age. Of course there is some downside risk, but just what that is is the key determination.

For me, in practice, I tend to buy more than I can drink, so I just stick them in my closet until I'm ready, and I'll be willing to wait a bit longer on the heavy stouts and barleywines, ettc.

 

The whole point of drinking micro beer and the demand of bottling dates on labels is because we all prefer the beer fresh. Overall fresh beer is better. Growlers are best fresh etc. Only a few stouts and others get better over time.

Marshal Zhukov hits it's peak in 6 months. I have batch #1 with the trolley train on it and a typed sticker saying "Cedar Aged Marshal Zhukov" and the most recent batch with the newer label. The newer one is drinking better now and pretty much at peak. When it was 1st released it wasn't as good. Tasted kind of weird but now it has turned into something better. Batch #1 is way past it's prime just like 110K+OT #2 which was cedar aged Marshal Zhukov excessively dry hopped.