New to aging...help?

10%+ is the guideline I use, for the most part.

Two rules:

1.) Don't expect them to get "better." Hope they change to your liking.
2.) Don't feel badly drinking them. It's beer and beer is meant to be shared with family and friends. Share your collection with them.

Also, I wouldn't age the DFH American Beauty.

 

120 Minute IPA will age for a long time. It becomes more of a barely wine as the hops fade. I'm not sure about the Clown Shoes, but the Southern Tier could possibly age well. I probably wouldn't age American Beauty, because the hop character will fade with age.

Overall it just depends what you're looking for in the beer. Cellaring doesn't necessarily make a beer better, it just makes it different.

 

Aging for me more so happens by accident. When I get a haul of new beers, I sort through them and determine if they need to be drank fresh or not. If not, they get shelved until I feel like drinking them or need them for a bottle share.

Here are the general rules I follow:

To drink fresh:
1) It says "Drink Fresh" on the bottle
2) Hop-forward or has delicate flavors or aromas
3) ABV is under 10%

To wait:
1) High ABV Sour, Stout, Barelywine, other malt-focused beer
2) If the brewery suggest aging the beer (DFH 120 Min)
3) If I heard it can age well
I am aging some Southern Tier Pumking and DFH Punkin. At the 6mo mark, the Pumking was awesome, but the DGH was oxidized.

For you, I agree. Don't age the American Beauty. I don't think it has enough of a malt backbone to survive it. The others will do well I think. However, I've never had Southern Tier Choklat Oranj so I don't know how prominent the orange is in that beer, but I expect it would fade. Not a bad thing, but as those above say, it'll just be different.

 

I definitely like all of those beers fresh, so I don't think you "miss out" if you have them fresh and not aged. That being said, DFH 120 is pretty easy to get, so you might want to age it, since it really changes over time. I would lean towards drinking the others fresh, IMO.

 

My suggestion would be to try the beers first before you age unless you are sure you will like them aged.

I usually age things that I think are going to be 'hot' or harsh fresh - things like the Billionaire is a perfect example, it is probably boozy and alcoholic right now, but with a few months (3-6) those flavors will settle down. If you age it for a year or 2, it will change a lot more, and become a different beer.

 

Nice, have fun with the home brews!