September Cellar Reviews

I had a four year old one a week ago. It gets better

 

Opened a buddy's bottle of GD 2011 Barrel Aged Yeti on Sunday. Poured black as oil, but has been infected...quite sour. Not in a terrible way, but not the inky, barrel aged stout I had my mind set upon. Interesting regardless.

 

Wow, I had a completely different experience with '13 BWB. Had it on draft at a local bar that I would trust to take good care of their kegs. I thought it was completely faded. Malty and oaky, but everything else was gone. Interesting, I had given up on it as an aging beer, but maybe I got a bad keg...

 

Not just you, I've had the same experience with multiple bottles. Now, just drink all that beauty fresh!

 

Honestly I was not expecting much when I pulled the bottle from the cellar. I was just trying to clean up loose end experiments. I'm definitely going to keep one rotating in my cellar from now on.

 

lol at the cork strategy...

I tend to pop min into 1L growlers to, or flip top bottles to save them and they go through a similar oxidization process, often improving as such. I also like to blend them sometimes, occasionally this gives the best result.

3.0 was awesome!

 

Just popped a 2012 Bruton St Renna, very mellow, but a bit past it's prime. Hints of leather started to form, actually probably would have been great at 5 years old with some oxidization.

 

I just had a couple of old Founders beers last night, both of which were very good.

I had a 2012 Backwoods. It was showing a little oxidation, but had a really nice sweet/alcohol heat balance to it. That beer is just so darn good with some age on it. This is a little older than I previously thought was the sweet spot, so I may need to revisit my thoughts on that.

I also had a 2011 KBS. It was perfect, as long as you are ok accepting some coffee flavor loss. It was mega, mega chocolate-y. Carb was still pretty strong. It has a bit thinner mouthfeel than some other imperial stouts, but no alcohol burn whatsoever. This is one that I love at any age, but with very different experiences and for different reasons at any given point in time.