Minnesota cellaring

darkness, surly five

 

Do you consider Michigan local?

 

I had some good luck with "Old Man Winter Warmer" (Lake Superior Brewing) a while back.

 

Beer is not a collectable. When it leaves a brewery, the brewers are happy with the taste. You should be too. If you want to save a few to see how it ages, make sure you taste the fresh product first. NEVER review aged beer. Not fair to hold a brewery accountable for you holding a product beyond it's intended date. Breweries that release beers that are not ready for consumption are not doing things properly. It should be seen as such.

If you want to collect something, try Star Wars figures or baseball cards.

 

Would you say the same thing for wine?

 

I think that's a pretty limited view. Would you say the same is true for wine? Or that Deschutes is not doing things properly? (many of their beers have a "best after" date)

I would agree that many people hold onto beer for much longer than they should, or age things that are only going to go downhill. But the idea that beers like imperial stouts, barleywines, quads, lambics, and others are only meant to be drunk fresh (or that brewers should hold onto them until they're universally deemed "ready") seems to me to be a minority opinion.

 

I picked up a Stone Vertical Epic 11 in St. Paul about a month ago, not designed to age as long as your looking but if you're looking for something to age a bit shorter period of time that might be a possibility if you stumble upon on.

 

Aging wine and beer are a completely different animal. Aside from Lambics, I let even the biggest beers go no more than five years. Wine is totally different. I have a 1982 Mouton Rothschild that I don't plan on touching until I turn 50. That's another 20 years from now. I agree with JohnBierman. It's not a collectible. Can beers be cellared? Yes. Can they be auctioned off at ******ed prices, yes (which I despise.) Can they Improve with age? Yeah. However, beer does not appreciate in value the way wine does, and there is not a global market for beer the way there is wine. Once Hong Kong realizes how much demand there is for certain beers, it's all over. KBS will be five hundred a four-pack.

 

Well kept J.W. Lees vintages blow my mind every time.

 

It is "your" beer, do with it what you want, there are many breweries that make beer that they encourage to be cellared and aged as many of these breweries and even some distributors are doing the same thing ie: Goose Island, Deschutes, Brouwerij Demolen, Cantillon. One of the reasons many of us go out to some of these tastings or are drawn to events is because a brewery will have a "vertical" of a specific beer, or, who wouldn't flock to a keg of 07' BCS? If some breweries didn't intend for their beer to be aged or cellared, why would they do it themsleves? Here are a few beers I have had good luck with in the past and feel in some cases are way more to my liking with a little time to age:
Goose Island BCS 4pks & 22's, Big Foot Barleywine 6pks , Lift Bridge Commander 750ml, O'dell Saboteur 750ml, Southern Tier Backburner 22oz, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout 4pks.........

 

Remember that I worked for Goose Island. They were not very happy about people ageing kegs of their beer. In kegs, you need to replace rubber seals from time to time. Things can go wrong that will affect the beer inside. There was always the question of, what happens if our distributor sells a 5 year old $200 1/6 barrel to an account and it is bad. Does the distributor refund the account? Do they try and put the mistake on the brewery (due to a 10 year code date) and try and get reimbursed for the cost of the beer? If the beer does not work out after being aged, and customers come to an account expecting to try something great, no one benefits.

Many distributors have cellaring programs. That fact makes most breweries nervous. Some distributors have no idea what ages well or why. A few of them just read on forums like these that people pay extra for old kegs. Most of the time distributors reasons for cellaring the beer is for profit and nothing else.

I have a cellar. It is very limited. I'm not saying don't do it. I am saying that it's probably not something that the newbie beer drinker or a person with modest beer knowledge should attempt.

Will many people flock to a store to try a verticle of certain aged beers? Absolutely, people flock to stores to try and get their hands on any item that is rare or collectible (not just beer). So, that makes doing this type of thing a good way for a store to pull customers through the door and is a good marketing tool.

In the end, do whatever you want with your beer. You bought it and deserve that right. I personally don't want to drink old oxidized beer.

 

JohnBierman: Please read PokerGod's last post. He did not want/ask for a debate on this. I think it would be fair to respect his wishes. Another thread can be started to discuss cellaring as a whole. He was just asking for some opinions on beers that might cellar well.


PokerGod: If you want to try some basic stuff for comparison aged and fresh. Dark Horse Plead the 5th might be interesting. If your really risky, Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree (if you can still find some) is RECOMMENDED to be aged by the brewers (I was drinking with them last weekend!). With how malty it is, it's hardly an IPA and more of a BarleyWine. But their website event suggests aging it for comparison. I'm going to give it a try this year myself. Normally I have a hard time not drinking them though

Lift Bridge Commander would likely be good in a year or so. Surly Smoke gets super bacon-y smooth after a year.

Hope that helps!

 

Pos

 

Smoke is frigging awesome with a year or so on it. Forgot I had one in the rubbermaid cellar Pulled it out a couple months ago and it was so amazing, the smoke had faded some so it no longer tasted like drinking a BBQ, and instead was just a super smooth amazing beer.

 

And thread jacking is why posts get locked so often. It is disrespectful to ignore the OP's requests for no debate regardless of what good discussion might come from it.


BTW, Bourboun County after 1 year is freaking AMAZING! It tops my list of beers to let sit for a year. But like stated, if you haven't had it fresh, don't ever age a beer. You need a baseline to do a good comparison. There are a lot of beers out there that people age, or are told to age (Abyss being one of them), that are fantastic fresh (again, Abyss day 1 is a 10).

 

Then I'd get my hands on some Bell's Expedition and 3rd coast old ale. Both age extremely well for 3+ years and are relatively easy to find. I was thinking you meant local as brewed in MN - which makes it a little more difficult. If you meant - you can find it locally, then add SN Bigfoot - another easy to find, relatively inexpenisve one to age for the long haul.

 

I am currently aging a couple bottles of Commander from Lift Bridge Brewery in Stillwater. It is a Barleywine and is fantastic out of a new bottle and I can't wait to try it after a year and then a few years after that. Not sure if you like Barleywines but they usually age really well. The brewer at Lift Bridge told me the Commander should be good to age for up to 6 years. Good luck.

 

Building up a vertical of Bigfoot is easy enough. Its not local, but its available locally.