Minnesota cellaring

The easiest place to start is with Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. It ages well and the differences are quite apparent.

 

Totally agree. Easy to find and relatively cheap compared to many other options.

 

I dunno, the bottle told me to enjoy it between now and 2020.... that's what, eight years from bottling? Sounds like a conspiracy....

 

there is a lot of difference in opinion in this thread. Which is great, in a sense. It allows every one of us to chose the side that we believe in. But it shouldnt allow us to bash the other person because of what he/she believes. I like aging beers, and Ilike drinking them fresh. I will not try to cellar a beer until I have it fresh. So in a sense, every one is right. As John said, you should drink the beer as the brewer intended, but ...... I know what I like. So whats the answer??? do your do, do it how you do it, and dont let anyone else tell you how to do it. Find out what you like, like it, and drink YOUR beer. My only hope, dont be so closed minded and closed fisted that you dont HEAR what any one else has to say.
so cheers, this Abrasive is drinking fantastic.

 

Anyone have a celebration vertical to share?

 

Well said by Mr Lobo.

As I stated before, I have a cellar of my own at home. I do not mean to totally discourage the notion.

All beers change with age on them. An overwhelming majority of beers will not improve with age. If you choose to experiment with cellaring, be prepared, because the experience is likely to fall short of your expectations. I have been around many young drinkers that want to impress people or make new friends by offering cellared or rare brews. If your experiment does fail, most of the time, you are the one to blame. Please, never post a bad review of the beer if it was your choice to lay it down.

Cellaring will not help a novice beer drinker to refine their palate. Most younger beer drinkers should be working towards learning how to detect COMMON off flavors in beer before we start to discuss the benefits of aged brews. Until your palate knows how to detect oxidization, diacatyle, DMS, acetaldehyde, etc... do not consider yourself a beer expert. From what I see while out in my trade, there may be a whole generation of drinkers in the MPLS area that have grown accustomed to flawed beers (especially oxidized beer). There seems to be a bit of a herd mentality when it comes to craft/local beer in our city. Many local/craft drinkers don't care if a hip/llocal beer is flawed. They just know their friends are drinking it, drinking it is cool and they want to be part of the crowd associated with it's coolness.

An earlier post likened beer to wine. They are not the same animal. Wines can be aged incorrectly or for too long by a novice. If that happens they may develop off flavors and sometimes even a snot-like substance that floats in the glass and is not pleasing in the least. Many high end restaurants hire a sommelier to help select wines that age well and make their menu better. Cellaring is fairly new to American craft beer. Be ready, it can go very wrong. Don't assume that just because you have an aged brew, that it is a better drinking experience than a fresh brew.

 

True. JW Lees and Thomas Hardy's beers are exceptions.

 

Actually, Blue Max often puts out vintage Celebration! I believe they had bottles back to '07 recently...

 

In my opinion Celebration has a window of 3 months from made date. Old Celebration does nothing for me but wish I had drank it fresh. If you like Sierra Nevada and Barleywine, I think its called bigfoot.

 

I actually agree with John on this one. I have a few beers in my celler, but those are their to keep special one off beers that don't get released year round. Right now, all that is there is four years of Darkness, two bottles of Five and a homebrewed RIS. I don't age for the sake of aging, I have them there to drink when I am in the mood.

Someone mentioned Deschutes "best after" dates...which I think is a cop out for Deschutes (a top five brewery in my book), and is just a gimmick IMO. The Abyss is an amazing beer, and it is also amazing fresh. I understand breweries not wanting to take the space and money to store these beers that age well, but they are opening themselves up to unwarented critisism when people don't age the beer properly, or just don't like what aging has done with the beer.

My lure to Darkness is the wonderful hop aroma and flavor you get out of an RIS, well that is gone after only a few months and your left with a great beer (my opinion is that the beer is not as good), I just can't drink that much Darkness when it is fresh. Not to mention your paying alot of money for a beer that uses alot of hops (which add significantly to the cost you pay) that go away after time.
Sorry OP for adding to the debvate, I just felt the need to give my $0.02

Carry on...

 

Still curious why if Goose Island doesn't want people aging their beers then why do they put up to five years on the bottle? John does Summit have a beer that cellars well? Don't get me wrong I like Summit, I'm just curious. I like cellaring beer but I would agree you should always try it fresh and then leave one to age so that you can compare the two.

I kind of doubt distributors are only interested in making money off of cellared beers. They know their is a demand for it. Bars have nights focused on cellared beers (mainly in kegs) and some beer dinners even offer cellared beers.

PokerGod good luck with the cellaring!

 

Good question.

I think anyone cellering should always do this with a beer they want to age, many people prefer a beer with some age on it...but be informed about the beer when you do.

I do believe that they should get a higher cost when the product has been taking up space. My hope is that the distributor is cellering properly, but I am also not going to rely on them for that reason.

 

If I start a thread on the proper use of the words there/their/they're and to/two/too, would you guys please read it?

 

No Your/you're? :-)

 

All Summit products have a 150 day shelf life. None of our products will benefit from cellaring. Later this year, we will introduce a few high-gravity beers. Some of them will likely hold up in a cellar.

As far as Goose Island is concerned, there was a difference of opinion on cellaring their products when you would ask a brewer vs marketing personnel. I do not think Matilda benefits from cellaring. It does "develop" in the bottle for up to 5 years. However, 5 year old Matilda does not taste very good. Why does Goose put a 5 year date on Matilda? Probably so they do not have to go pick up all of the old Matilda that is sittiing in local liquor stores since that product doesn't sell very quickly. It is genius marketing.

Goose Island was not happy to hear that local distributors were aging their products in house. The brewery had access to the local distributors inventory. For example, I had a hard time convincing the brewery to send more 2011 BCBS to MN because the distributor was holding inventory from 2010. When I would ask for a larger quantity of '11 be sent to MN, they would answer with, "Why? MN has not been able to sell out the 2010 inventory."

You also stated that you doubt distributors are interested in making money off of something that is in demand. Think about that for a second. Of course distributors want to make money. That is why they exist. If they have a product in demand, that helps them make money. I've worked with several different distributors and very few of their personnel even have marginal beer knowledge. Many of them are sitting on products they should not be cellaring.

 

Can you please specify what Minnesota distributor is sitting on 2010 BCBS??? Or at least confirm if it was part of the TC metro area distribution network? The notion that we got short allocations of 2011 BCBS because of a distributor decision is pretty repulsive to me.

Unless I am mistaken, the 2010 never even hit the shelves in most parts of the TC metro (although I seem to recall Rochester and some other areas seeing distribution). So is there a metro distributor who never bothered to release the 2010 when it first went to market that is now sitting on it?

I know that you no longer rep GI, and recognize there might be limits to what you are comfortable sharing, but this one sort of bugs me. Frankly, it feels like MN has gotten the short end of some of the GI distribution decisions the past couple years, so it would help to understand their thinking.

 

MN received around 30 cases of 2010 BCBS upon it's initial release. The local distribution network did not want to pick 30 accounts to sell a case each to. They were afraid of pissing off every store in town that did not receive a case. They made a decision to hold the cases that they had until the shipment of 2011 hit. Once 2011 BCBS came into the state, the top 30 Goose Island retail accounts each received 1 case of 2010 with their delivery of 2011.

Also, it is not the distribution networks fault that 2011 was shorted. It was 100% due to the fact that MN was a market that was not showing growth with the brand. Many other markets were growing and saw a greater allocation of BCBS than MN. Keep in mind that many of them were markets that GI recently entered. Whenever you enter a new market, people are excited to try your product and you have a nice "Honeymoon period" where sales are strong. The only way to increase the amount of BCBS that will come to MN is to grow the sales of 312, Honkers etc. etc. I'm glad that is not a challenge on my plate any longer.

Unless ABI can make BCBS a year round offering...

 

Thanks for the additional background Jon.

I know you do not represent the distribution network in any way, and are only explaining their actions as you understand them, but damn that does not make sense. So their logic was, "We only have 30 cases of 2010 to spread around the metro, so no one will get them. Until next year, when the same 30 accounts we probably would have distributed them to will just get them anyway, along with their 2011." Yeah, now that I've written it out myself...it still doesn't make sense.

Also, I am having trouble reconciling the following two statements from your last two posts:
(1) "For example, I had a hard time convincing the brewery to send more 2011 BCBS to MN because the distributor was holding inventory from 2010. When I would ask for a larger quantity of '11 be sent to MN, they would answer with, "Why? MN has not been able to sell out the 2010 inventory."
(2) "Also, it is not the distribution networks fault that 2011 was shorted. It was 100% due to the fact that MN was a market that was not showing growth with the brand."

Number (1) makes me upset, based on the premise that the distributors were apparently withholding inventory and thereby having a detrimental affect on the consumers in the TC metro area by limiting their access to both 2010 BCBS and by extension 2011 BCBS. Number (2) is a lot more reasonable. But they seem to be in conflict with each other...was GI really limiting 2011 BCBS because, as they suggest (perhaps disingenuously) that we hadn't sold out of 2010, or was it because MN was not showing growth as a brand? Why would they even bring up (1) if (2) was really the issue?

As consumers, I think most of us can get comfortable with the idea that distribution of premium products is linked to overall strength and growth of the full product line. Personally, I have a much bigger problem with the thought that we get short allocations because of some kind of pissing match between GI and the local distributors, which resulted from the local distributors making a stupid decision.

Please note that I am in no way trying to call you out on any of this Jon since I know it was not your decision making. I just find it fascinating to understand how the distribution network and allocation decisions operate.

It would really be great if someone from the distribution network could chime in. But I'm not holding my breath...

 

I'll try and answer your questions as best I can. Also, understand that GI made more 2011 BCBS than they did in 2010. We got a larger allotment, however, it was the same percentage of BCBS as was sent in 2010.

1. I don't know why the distributor thought this was the best way to handle this release. I do believe that they were trying their best to do things in a way that did not upset too many people. These limited release beers are very new to the industry and no one has come up with a very good way to handle them quite yet.

2. I should have been more clear in stating that GI has a few different releases of BCBS planned this year. The first shipment was sent to MN and sold out right away. I went to many accounts and told them when it was coming and how much they were able to buy. I was in contact with the local distributor during the entire process. They delivered on all of the promises that I made to local retail accounts. The fight was in getting GI to allocate a larger amount to MN from the second shipment. It was not the distributors fault.

I hope that answers your questions.

 

I'll try and answer your questions as best I can. Also, understand that GI made more 2011 BCBS than they did in 2010. We got a larger allotment, however, it was the same percentage of BCBS as was sent in 2010.

1. I don't know why the distributor thought this was the best way to handle this release. I do believe that they were trying their best to do things in a way that did not upset too many people. These limited release beers are very new to the industry and no one has come up with a very good way to handle them quite yet.

2. I should have been more clear in stating that GI has a few different releases of BCBS planned this year. The first shipment was sent to MN and sold out right away. I went to many accounts and told them when it was coming and how much they were able to buy. I was in contact with the local distributor during the entire process. They delivered on all of the promises that I made to local retail accounts. The fight was in getting GI to allocate a larger amount to MN from the second shipment. It was not the distributors fault.

I hope that answers your questions.