When is it worth it to "Vert"

One of the things about verts to keep in mind is that generally, past 4 years, you have a lot of beer to drink in one (presumably) sitting. So how many people you will involve is a major factor as well. I recently did a Black Butte vertical with 4-5 years and that was a lot of high ABV beer to drink. Involving about 6-7 people helped spread the wealth and keep me from getting wasted. Also, it seemed about the right amount of beers so that even at the last of the vert, we could still taste the beers, differentiate them, and ultimately, enjoy them.

 

A minimum of 3 years, preferably 5. We did a 10 year vertical of Old Stock (which is one of my all-time faves) earlier this year, and it was a blast!

 

These are some of my favorites to vertical I personally like 5 year verticals
Darkness
10-Fidy
Bigfoot
Alaskan Smoked Porter
BCBS
CW Stout or BW

 

One thing to be mindful of in planning verticals is whether you have good cellar conditions. If your beer spends a significant amount of time above about 70ºF—even for high-gravity beers—you'll find it goes off long before you're ready to do the tasting.

 

We did a tasting earlier this year of 2005-2014 BCBS, and many of the variants. Most of the BCBS bottles prior to 2010 were off. One year, I think 2008? Was still legit, but the others were too far gone. I was still very drunk about 6 hours later. It might'be been too much, but it was fun .

 

Most beers turn downhill pretty quickly after 3 or 4 years. I did 2011-2014 BCBS this summer, and it confirmed my suspicions that it peaks at 2-3 years. The 2012 was awesome.

Anything past 5 years will take a special beer, aka a beer over 15% ABV.

 

Favorite vertical was Bell's Expedition, think we did 5-6 yrs of it. Helps to have something that actually ages well and also if the bottles were all stored in different areas it's really hard to know why the beers taste the way they do. A warmer cellar will age the beer faster, could even make it taste 'older' than an actually older bottle depending on cellars.

For the most part I've given up on verts, but it's still fun to do once and awhile, maybe not with something overly expensive.

 

I think I sound like a broken record, but that book "Vintage Beer" really helps to understand what's worth putting together a vertical of. Expedition Stout was one that was mentioned.
Styles: stouts & barleywines at/above 8%, lambics & smoked beers as well.

 

To combat this problem (and to save money), what I'm attempting to do is buy bottles of a particular beer every 2 years instead of every year. I started buying beer to cellar in 2013, so this year I've been trying to buy those same beers. Last year I bought a 6 pack of Expedition Stout to cellar, so I'll wait until next year to buy it again.

My thinking is that 2 years will show more stark differences between beers, and I'll have a less exhausting vertical to do later this decade.

 

Interesting idea.

 

I've done a few verticals of 4 and 5 years split between 2 to 4 people. I have never done a high-octane World Wide Stout vertical so I haven't run into any problems of overdoing it. All of the beers sampled were good in different ways. My favorite ages are now my loose target age for the beers.

5 year vert of Sisyphus (local barleywine) - favorite aged was 2 years
4 year vert of Bigfoot - favorite aged was 3 years
4 year vert of Old Foghorn - favorite aged was 3 years
4 year vert of Ten-Fidy - favorite aged was 2 years

I do have a three year vertical of DFH 120 in the cellar waiting to be consumed. I don't think I should wait too much longer and still try to drink it in one sitting with only 3 people.

Other verticals I have in the works (still not sure if these will be consumed in a vertical)...
3 Philosophers
Billionaire
Bitches Brew
Bourbon Barrel Hellfighter (local imperial porter)
Double Bastard
IRS
La Muerta (local imperial stout)
Narwhal
Old Stock
Old Rasputin

 

I sucker myself into saving verticals of way too many beers that I never end up drinking. For some reason as soon as I get 2 or 3 different vintages of a beer I immediately think that I need to save it for 10 years and have some massive vertical tasting. Those massive tastings almost never happen. Anytime I have enough people over to take down a 10 year vertical we generally decide that several different bottles sound better than 10 bottles of the same beer (Especially if they ae 22oz or 750ml.) The every other year vertical is a little more manageable and you still get a clear picture of the beer how it holds up over the years.

In general I have found that very few beers will hold up well after more than 7 or 8 years and the sweet spot for most cellar worthy non sour beers is in the 3 – 5 year range.

 

3 years minimum, 5 years is a great average, though a 10 year Fou Foune or Lou pepe vert were both pretty earth shattering. Abv amount, and attendees are also factors. Also, personally imho, verts are not a good idea at bottle shares. They go to waste, too much beer, and people try to pace and take small pours, etc. It can be tough with verts, holding them for the right time and place, but when you can share them, with good friends/family, food pairings, or some cheese, snacks, chocolates, it can be quite awesome.