I was just reading about Old Ales under Beer Styles here at BA and it mentions that some brewers age their Old Ales with Brett. Does anyone know which Old Ales (if any) are aged with Brett?
I thought I remembered Jamil Zainasheff say something about Old Peculier having a tinge of brett, but it's not something I've experienced with any of the bottles I've had. That said, I'd love to hear of one that has it.
Gale's Prize Old Ale -now a Fuller's product. (Have yet to crack open the new version or do a side-by-side with some old corked bottles from Gale's)
There are a bunch of bottles of that, dating back to '02, at one my go-to stores. Do you think 10 years on brett will be too much?
The Gale's straight corked bottles are notorious for being defective, flat and/or just "bad". I do think that many people who've rated it poorly didn't understand the style or the fact that it was a Brett beer. I've always enjoyed the bottles I've had, stretching back to the mid-80's for some bottles bought in the UK and hand carried home, to a case purchased around 2000. Maybe I'm lucky- maybe I'm more forgiving - maybe I just acquired a taste for bad beer. The vintage Gale's bottles I see (pretty sure they're still in stock at the importer B. United) are priced pretty reasonably- worth the gamble, I say - but do read up on the beer beforehand.
If you can find a bottles of Gale's that don't suffer defective/leaky corks it's definitely worth trying.
They're not waxed, they just have plastic "shrink-wrap" type covering. Never thought about it, but sometimes the corks are pressed tight against the plastic and will actually break through. (I bought a case one time, and several corks had broken through the plastic and popped out of the bottles so far they were "U" shaped.) I guess one might say those corks were sealed well enough to do that but that's not to suggest they didn't just push the cork until the excess pressure was able to escape. Have never seen one with an evidence of actual beer having leaked (unlike Samuel Adams Triple Bock which also used straight corks, but of the "sherry" style T-corks, rather than wine-type).
