The Bruery Fruet

I'm counting on it. I refused to buy 2 bottles at that price, so the only bottle I have is going to be cellared for at least a year.

 

I'm sure it will age wel, But it doesn't need age either. It's a very smooth, tasty old ale right now. Waiting is only hurting your taste buds feelings.

 

It says on the bottle that it will last for quite a while. I, too, only bought the one bottle as the price was a tad steep so I'll be holding on to my bottle for a while. I have a buddy who shared his bottle and said it could easily take a a year or three to cool down a little. He didn't say it was a bad beer fresh, but did say that it definitely wouldn't hurt to lay this beer down for a while.

 

what exactly are you hoping to accomplish by aging the beer? aging does not automatically make it better.

 

If you keep doing this maybe people won't try to age every beer they get for no real reason!

 

I guess I should drink my bottle of Row 2 Hill 56 instead of aging it.

 

if i keep doing this, i'm just going to get selectively banned from the cellaring forum.

but it was a serious question. "buy beer, reflexively put it away" - why??? the whole point is that you taste it, identify a flaw, extrapolate from past experience whether that flaw will improve without too much sacrifice in the beer's other characteristics, and then optimize for the best solution. it boggles my mind that the best solution is to age a $30 beer until it might be a shell of its former self.

these people who automatically transfer beer from shelf to cellar remind me of crazy ducks that walk around and sit on random pebbles hoping they'll hatch.

 

Not gonna doubt that you can't age Fruet but wtf these comments are dumb. Buy a case and see how it ages. If you have one bottle then what is the point?

 

While I definitely agree that you should open a bottle fresh most of the time, maybe the OP wants to start a vertical of Bruery Anniversary Ales. I never got around to opening my bottle of Black Tuesday when it was fresh so I might as well just wait until the next release and try it side by side with a fresh one.

 

I actually ended up buying three bottles (yes, the price was steep), one to drink fairly fresh and two to age. Historically in both England and Scotland, there were high abv old ales and barleywines that were brewed with the intention of being aged; sometimes with the intention of being cellared for decades before consumption. They weren't necessarily sampled prior to cellaring. For those that want to drink Fruet fresh, that's great. For those that want to sit on it for a while, you have quite a bit of historical precedent. If you have an opportunity to talk with someone who is a aficionado when it comes to U.K. old ales or barleywines (e.g. Thomas Hardy, JW Lees), you'll probably find they have several bottles that are 10+ years old in their cellar.

As far as my bottles, I plan to age both a minimum of 10 years. It will be interesting to see how a traditionally-crafted old ale that has an American twist to it (bourbon barrel aging) will taste after being aged in the manner many U.K. brewed old ales are.

 

Personally, I'm a little worried as I've read reports that regular Papier and Coton have "fallen off a cliff". Now, that's regualr (25% BA?) and not the 100% BA versions, but it still makes me nervous. Is the 100% BA going to make it age that much better than the 25%?

 

Depends on how much you like 'sherry notes.' I personally don't like oxidation in beer. 100% barrel aging can amplify it more than just a 25% blend. It might even be worse considering the method that this beer is made.

I never thought Papier was good to begin with.

 

I bought 2 bottles of Fruet and cracked one of them open on the 4th, and I can safetly say that this beer is more than excellent fresh. I still plan on aging my other one, but only because I want to get a vertical going of all the years (anyone got any Coton or Papier to trade?).

If you only have 1 bottle, I say drink it. You'll be glad you did.

 

Cannot wait to open my bottle in a few weeks. Very much looking forward to this.

 

Yeah, what if you wait five years to drink it except you die in four?

 

Because you don't know if you'll even like BT. What happens when you drink it next year and realize that it's just a bucket of bourbon sugar? And worse yet, what if you don't even LIKE bourbon sugar!

 

Everyone loves buckets of bourbon sugar.

 

Everyone else is doing it. Duh.

 

I'm just hoping the alcohol will mellow in a year. Figure a year won't cause it to fall off a cliff, and it says on the bottle you can age it. I've been let down too many times by high abv beers being boozy even when others have said they're not, so I'm not wasting $30 on a beer that I will hate because I'm extremely sensitive to alcohol taste. Every high abv beer I've liked except KBS has been aged.