Seriously BA, cellaring IPAs?

It would throw a nice monkey wrench in the reviews if a bunch of BAs started reviewing 'aged' IPAs, since it's such a night and day difference. It would definitely lead some 'hop heads' away from what could be great IPAs...

 

Short of a few styles (sours, brett beers, BA stouts) I'm not a big fan of cellaring in general. I've gotten to the point where heavy oxidation bothers me nearly as much as diacetyl.

 

Aged Hopslam is better than you might think. There are a few IPAs that age quite well. Not saying they're as good as their fresh version, in my opinion, but they're a different way of enjoying the beer.

Open your mind. Not everything has to be done the one way we're used to seeing.

 

You're looking at it from the wrong angle. It's not always a search for a beer that tastes the best, sometimes it's the search for a new experience. Again, I don't intentionally age beer as I have never had an aged beer that I thought was better than it's fresh counterpart. However, if I have had 5,000 fresh Heady Toppers, why not age one for a year, due a side by side and enjoy the experience?

 

As fast as legal limits and workplace will allow! Finally gonna drink that Enjoy By 11/12/13. Is "enjoy on" too old, or have I missed the window?

 

I have one Hopslam left over from this year's release. I didn't want to drink it because I would have to wait til next year then forgot about it. When I remembered it, it was past being fresh so I figured I would save it and compare it to next year's batch.

 

I am just glad I am not into all this fresh stuff and REQUIRES you to drink a beer by date or it will go bad or something silly like that,....I had a 2 year old Hopslam that rocked IMHO.

 

Says I can age my Apocolypse Cow as well....Not sure if ill be doing that with them

 

You can cellar any beer, doesn't mean it's going to be the same beer as it was intended to be in the beginning. I feel the same way about aging IPAs as I do when I hear people talking about aging coffee beers. Aging a coffee stout makes it a stout and aging a DIPA makes it a bad barleywine.

 

Psh, it's garbage by this point. Might as well pour it out.

I had a 10/26 about a week ago and it was still phenomenal. This beer could seriously be a Top 5 DIPA for me. Better than Pliny, in my personal opinion.

 

I never used to worry about it until after a year on BA. I just love to buy good beer. Of course, I am going to want to try beers like "Enjoy By". I figure if I can keep 'em cool and out of the light, the hop flavor will remain reasonably close. I worry about "fresh" more when I am sending friends beer. For my own beer fridge, being oblivious hasn't exactly been a bad thing.

 

ipa's DO NOT turn into barley wines.

 

SA noble hop lager (pils) whatever and some pa's are as hoppy as I can enjoy more than 1 of .

Though I did have 1 of a Sweetwater 420 yesterday at lunch,. then I had a Left hand milk stout, wow what a change that was.

 

I had a brown sugga aged 8 months and it was fantastic. Granted it's not an IPA, but that mother effer is hoppy as hell fresh.

 

I've had lots of aged DIPAs and while being different from fresh, they still tasted good

 

After joining BA, I got the idea from a thread last year to cellar some Brown Shugga, and recently did a 2012/2013 vertical... Uhh, let's just say I will be drinking them fresh, and not cellaring them in the future.

 

Simple. I never said that was the only condition with automatic text. Only that automatic text probably appears if a beer has over 7% ABV.

One can set up an infinite amount of conditions that elicit the same result.

You could set up the same automatic text to appear if the brewery is "Firestone Walker". You could set up the same automatic text if the location is "Belgium". And on and on and on....

 

IMO....
1. IPA's do not turn into barley wines
2. hoppy beers must be consumed fresh for optimum taste
3. cellaring hoppy beers of any abv. is dumb.
4. my only exception is 120min by dogfish head. I think it's better fresh with some nice pungent cheese but a month or two in the cellar tends to mellow this beer with out turning grassy.

things i do or would cellar are...

high abv stouts and porters
quads, dbls, triples, lambics
english barley wines
english old ales
and non hop forward american old ales.

This doesn't mean I cellar indefinitely.

 

I actually age some DIPAs, interesting to see changes in the beer.

 

"Hoppy beers" is subjective. What is your floor/ceiling in IBUs for what you call a "hoppy beer"? 25 IBUs? 35 IBUs? 50? 70?