St. Bernardus Abt 12 Methuselah

This is a great question.

Not sure how much actual information that isn't anecdotal that will come from BA. But, there aren't a whole lot of hops to get skunked.

I would email or even call the brewery and don't give up until you get somebody who has good scientific info or they tell you to fly a kite.

There might even be something on the distributor hand-out info... still would probably be tough to find.

I would love to find something like this... If you don't mind, what is the price?

 

Based on what I've read, I think it's a semi-safe bet that a higher than "cellar" temperature (as long as it's not something like 70+F) doesn't greatly affect the aging, it just speeds it up. If that beer were brewed/bottled in 2013 and was sitting at 65F it might have aged an equivalent of 3-4 years instead of 2 years. However, I might be wrong here.

Not sure on how light affects the process though.

 

St. Bernardus is pretty good at responding to emails.

edit: Now that I think of it I remember seeing one at Apex in Portland. The Cantillion and Fantome's of the world might have a good answer on green bottles. Also JK just started a cellar experiment with green bottles to see how it affects their beer if at all.

 

Some thoughts:

The methuselah bottles tend to have thicker walls, possibly inhibiting light introduction into the beer more than smaller bottles of similar color.

Lightstruck changes occur because of exposure to light in the blue/ultraviolet range (<500nm), which is abundant in natural light. It isn't as abundant in synthetic light though (with the exception of bright white LED). So if the beer has been sitting in a store, it is less likely to have been lightstruck. That being said, green glass isn't very effective past 400nm where brown glass protects up to 500nm much better.

Hops are the primary source for compounds that become lightstruck (isohumulones). I'm not an expert in how Abt12 is brewed, but don't believe there are large amounts of hops. Chance of light degradation, in my opinion, is a function of amount of hops AND type of hops used, as some chemical compositions of varied hop types might be more resistant to conversion.

Exact temperature is not extremely important in filtered beers. It is more important in non-filtered beers, but still really not noticeable unless you're planning on cellaring beyond ~4 years. Some adjuncts and compounds change at slower or faster rates, which yields complexity to aging. Realistically, temperature change needs to be extreme to quickly have a profound effect. I'm thinking freezing or 85+ Fahrenheit when I say extreme.

Conclusion: For me, I would feel fine buying this any time within 6 months of release. I also feel like 6 months is a very safe estimate and could probably be stretched quite a bit with little to no effect. I have no exact science to coming up with this number, but it is just sort of what feels right based on what I said above and my personal experiences with cellaring and drinking.

Braindump over.

 

Wait, they make it in 6 liters, too?!