Project PAM: Cellar or no?

I would definitely try it. After even a year or so, they hops will hopefully die off and leave you with a sweet treat

 

I bought two bottles & thought the first was good, but the hops really clashed with the rest of the beer. I've stuck the other in a corner to think about what it's done wrong, & won't pull it out again for a minimum of a year, probably longer. I hope that once the hops die back it'll be much better.

 

I think your only risk is that when the hops fade a bit that they go from fresh and delicious, to old and stale with that "oniony" flavor that old hops sometime display.

But if you had it fresh and didn't especially like it (I loved it), it's worth a try. The sweetness and alcohol is there, so it for sure won't go bad, just might not end up tasting better.

 

I bought 2 bottles at Thanksgiving, my plans are to try one in the next 2 -3 weeks and the other one Thanksgiving 2016. The one other person I talked to said waiting a year should mellow out the flavors a little (I have not tried it yet and he had which is why I did not open it at Thanksgiving 2015).

 

....hmm may just have to go pick up another bottle to try this.

 

I asked the Founders rep about this a couple months ago and he said that it should be drank within three months or so of bottling. The brewer feels that nothing would be gained by cellaring this beer, but ymmv.

 

Does anyone know if this beer can be aged, or should it be consumed fresh. It is labeled a Black IPA, but doesn't taste much like your "regular IPA" and with the barrel aging, I am wondering if it will age well in the cellar?

 

Any beer can be aged. Whether it will taste better is up to you.

 

Understood, buy typically you want to drink an IPA Fresh to take advantage of the hops, but some stouts, porters, barley wines may actually get better in time... So should this be treated as an "IPA" or something different?

 

If you've never had it I suggest drinking it as it was intended. Age another bottle of you think you'll like to gamble.

 

I thought it was excellent! Want to see if it will get better :-) Thanks all.

 

I bought one 2-3months ago, think i will drink this within the next 4 weeks ,

 

I opened one in December and wasn't too thrilled by it, didn't get much maple, just a typical black IPA. Had it on draft in January and completely changed my mind. Maybe I was sick or something, but the Bourbon Maple flavor really came through and finished with a little touch of bitterness.

I'll probably just save the other I have for a year, for no real good reason other than it was fairly pricy and I'm hoping to get a CBS like Maple Bomb.

 

It's far from a normal black IPA, but the hops will fade and you'll likely get some bad oxidization over time. I wouldn't put it over a year.

 

I can't be the only one who stashed one of these in the basement. I'm curious if anyone else has done the same. Its been in there for 10 months now. I'm planning to pull it out in a couple more months. Wondering if I should wait longer.

 

I'm planning to pull mine out in 2 weeks. We'll see how she tastes.

 

I drank one fresh, and one about two weeks ago. I actually enjoyed it more after cellaring for the past 10 months. I felt that it became a nice sweet treat, and the maple stood out more, definitely lose the hops to make it a nice black IPA, but I believe it was a good trade off. I still have one more bottle in my cellar, and probably going to wait another 4-6 months before I pop her open. Hopefully it gets better, but I think that may be too much time and will start to fall off. But that is the great thing about cellaring some beers, its an experiment at times, and can pay off in the end.....or completely backfire.