Hi all, I like to keep about a six pack back on my beers with the intention to open them past when I think they’ll hit their prime. Sometimes I’m disappointed because they just get better and then they’re gone. Other times not so much. Wondering how others perceive their beers once they have a little too much age on them. Seems like when I get a beer past it’s prime it sort of just gets more and more dull and lifeless. Never really anything bad, you can tell that it once was something, but just slowly becomes a shell of what it used to be.
This is an interesting question. I have an IPA that was my first homebrew to turn out decent, and I am going to crack it in the next month or so after cellaring it for about 10 months. It's more of an experiment to see how the hops hold up. It is my intention to keep one of every batch I make for about a year and then compare.
With the exception of high ABV beers or stouts, most of my beers just kinda taste flabby and dull after around 6 months. Obviously quicker for IPAs and such. A little bit longer for saisons. I've found my ciders to hold up the best, probably due to acidity.
For me this is the norm. Rarely do I have oxidation problems but older brews just become lifeless and uninteresting. But occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised: Had a 2-year old Dubbel that sparkled, and a Scotch Ale that was originally pretty decent that turned into magnificent² after 3+ years of aging. My Rauchbiers always seem to improve up to a year, then start to fade away. Once judged a Barleywine that exploded with malt richness to the point it took Best of Show...the brewer said it was 3+years and had been improving all along the way. On the commercial side; got a six-pack of Westy 12 on Dec 12, 2012 (12/12/12/12) which was 9 months old when distributed. It has continued to improve. Last drank one beside a "fresh" Rochefort 10 in 2019 and the Westy put it to shame (have one bottle remaining). But just about every Duvel Tripel I've had in the US has been meh compared to drinking it in Europe.
Pretty much as has been discussed for the majority of the beer styles I brew at around 6-8 months the flavor profile becomes noticeably dull & muddled. There are a number of exceptions: Higher ABV beers can last much longer and for the case of my Quads they are tasty up to 4-5 years. I have brewed a few beers where I have co-pitched with Brett (e.g., Belgian Pale Ale with a co-pitch of Trappist style yeast and Brett) and those beers are good for several years. Beers that have a notable amount of dark malts (e.g., Porters, Czech Dark Lager,...) will still be very tasty at 1+ years of age. I homebrew a moderate gravity Harvest Ale every year using wet hops from my hop plant and those beers are still very tasty at 1+ years. I still have a few bottles of a Spruce Ale I bottled in June 2019 and those beers are still very tasty. I make it a point to drink all of my IPAs in less than 3 months from bottling. Cheers!
Pre kegging, my beers did not shine after a few months. Mostly oxidation creeped in. Post kegging, things are much better. As expected hops fade, flavors dull and the beers don't shine quite as expected, but still enjoyable for a while. If you are finding that your beers don't hold up as well as you might expect and are not already kegging, consider making the move. There are many benefits, having the ability to limit oxygen exposure is one of the biggest. Cheers
I do a little bit if both bottling and kegging, depending on what I have available and what I’m brewing/consuming. My freezer space is limited and I have to prioritize. I don’t think that I deal too much with oxidation, most average or small beers will go about a year to 16 months before dulling. This may or may not be normal, and my assumptions could be very wrong. They last a little while afterwards, but it’s more of a slow death. I haven’t really had a bigger beer hit that point, but I’m probably not patient enough. I remember reading (I think it was Palmer) that said keep some beers, you’ll learn something, just seems that nothing interesting really happens after a certain point.
So true. For a while, when everything needed to be aged, barrel aged, bourbon barrel double oaked aged etc., brewers were really treading on thin ice. Chasing that market lead to a dead end and quickly (and old timers saw it coming from the get go). All beer changes as it ages. Some beers age quickly. A few beers will gradually change. But most importantly, very few beers improve with age. The change may be acceptable, but it is pretty rare that a beer actually gets all that better after some aging. The ones that do are well known, rare and mostly of historic importance. And not all of those beers are necessarily great either (sorry, I just don't yearn for Thomas Hardy's Ale. Not much anyway. But a good Lambic is different. I digress...) Best part of homebrew is that we get to have fresh great beer. Once the beer is finished at FG, after a week or two for ripening, that is almost always the best beer. We should be trying to extend that window as much as possible IMO. Drink it fresh! Cheers
Shaun Hill once told me he thinks all beers are better fresh, even big stouts and barleywines. But he was happy to share a 20 year old Thomas Hardy later that evening... One of a very few beer subjects I disagree with him on. I made a couple of big stouts that were barely drinkable for 2 years, great at 4, and admittedly starting to fade at 6 years (gone shortly thereafter anyway).
I agree with @JackHorzempa. There are definitely some beers that age well, especially the higher alcohol ones (barley wines, quads, etc.). I still have some Westvleteren clones that I made 6 years ago. They kept improving for about 4-5 years and then stayed relatively constant with no decline in flavor/quality. I now have at least one every year in December. Not many left :-)
I agree with @JackHorzempa An IPA doesn't age well, but malt-forward beers, Belgium styles, higher alcohol styles, and (surprise surprise!) accidentally infected soured batches often taste better with a long aging process. Basically, I've kept bottles around of almost every beer I've ever made for up to 2 years for the specific purpose of seeing how they all age. The "aging" process ranges really from 1 to 5 years, afterwhich I've noticed almost no more changes occuring. What I've gleaned is that any flavor that goes into the beer before or during the boil will most like remain and mellow over time, sometimes for better, sometimes not. Basically, the sharpest flavors get rounded off, and each additional 6 months rounds off about 10% until it stabilizes at about some point. Surprisingly, anything aroma related is often not part of the above mentioned diminuation as long as it's addition has been pre-boil or during the boil; however, any aroma added after the boil, especially post-fermentation, dissapates rather rapidly from 3 to 8 months after final packaging (bottling in my case) until it's almost nothing. Basically = hot-side good for long term lagering, cold-side bad. Bitterness is similar to aroma in that it dissipates over time, actually a mellowing. I'd brewed a beer with way too much German Herkules hops that was initially after 2 months lagering still impossibly bitter, but after 6 was still somewhat bitter but quite drinkable. Basically 6 months lagering in my cool, dark cellar had halved the perceived bitterness. High alcohol content is a big factor in being able to lager for longer periods, for alcohol is a preservative. I've found anything under 6% doesn't usually fare well after 1 year. Any ABV higher than that ages much better until it begins to have port wine and sherry qualities, which usually appear after 1 year. A good example of all those factors above is a beer I named Gingered Delirium, which was based on a clone recipe for Delirium Tremens, but I added, actually tripled, the amount of dried gingered root, coriander seeds and grains of paradise. I also doubled the amount of of cane sugar added at the end of the boil. All the flavors, aroma & bitterness was added on the hot side. ABV ended up at 8%. The White Labs Belgian Golden Ale (WLP570) yeast attenuated the wort down to 1.008, something I wasn't expecting from the WL's literature. For the first month after bottling, it was hard to drink, too spicy, too gingery, too phenolic. 3 months in it tasted wonderfully gingery, peppery and spicy and lost much of its phenolic bite. I didn't drink any of it this summer and as of today, 9 months after bottling, it's super smooth, mellowed yet still quite gingery, peppery and spicy, but not at all overpowering, and the phenolic aspect mostly gone. It's also picked up a slight sherry quality that makes it a much smoother, balanced beer. It also has that Belgium Golden Ale yeast flavor, which has not dissipated very much. I've also made a Westvleteren XII clone at 13% ABV a few times and aged them each time. They steadily improve to almost be a fantastically tasting, plum-like port wine or sherry until the 6 year mark, afterwhich they seem to reach a stable point of flavor. Also it's been only after the 6 year mark when a few bottles began to go bad and turn vinegary.
Since I will reach 6 years in December with my Westvleteren XII clone, I hope they haven't reached the vinegary stage yet. I didn't quite reach the 13% ABV level, so it might not keep as well as yours. There was no trace of off-flavors last year (at the 5-year mark)..
There's only one way to find out. My experience is that the beer won't really improve any more, which means it's time to brew another batch. BTW, I made 40L (10 gal) batch last time 2 years ago, & I've only about 5 L left. Ut just tastes too good not to drink it.
