Store your beer in a cool, dark place. This helps prevent undesired flavors from taking root. Use plastic or metal crates, or actual shelving, if available. One year is a good jumping-off point. From there, check in every six months, year, two years or five—it really is up to you.
Thank You! We've received your email address, and soon you will start getting exclusive offers and news from Wine Enthusiast. While aging beer is a fine adventure, you need to evaluate all of the potential outcomes.
Will the beer improve with age? Or you may end up with unfavorable results—like being eaten by sharks, which is probably why I never got into those books. Bottom line: control the cellaring environment as much as possible and use discretion when choosing which craft beers to age. He lives in Westminster, Colorado where he is an avid craft beer enthusiast. On occasion, Andy is inspired to write on his experiences with craft beer, and if they are not too ridiculous, you might see the results here on CraftBeer.
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This action cannot be undone. Skip to content. Stories and opinions shared on CraftBeer. The level of humidity varies from basement to basement, so placing something like DampRid on one of the shelves may be a better solution than obtaining a dehumidifier. On the other hand, if you live in an overly dry climate like in the desert states, you may need to go the opposite direction and be sure you have enough humidity to prevent the corks from drying out excessively.
Aside from the conditions, another factor to consider is what you want to accomplish. Are you looking to taste the subtle differences in a beer after a specific amount of time, or are you looking to age something for years and open it for a special occasion? For the first scenario, you can age just about any beer for a year or more just to test the differences that time and oxidation yield.
You can test how the beer changes as flavors mellow or intensify. But in the latter case, you want to choose something you know will be stable for an extended period of time, so you want to choose a higher-alcohol style or sour beer for that purpose. Organizing your cellar will help you plan out tastings in the future and allow you to see exactly what you have on hand — or what beer styles you should focus on obtaining. OK, you have your space set up. So now what?
But some more obscure choices would be a Flanders Red or Oud Bruin , high-ABV lagers like Doppelbock , Weizenbock , wild sour ale and Lambic or Gueuze , strong Belgian ales, barrel-aged beers, and moderate-strength fruit or spiced beers. All these styles should hold up to a fair amount of aging, and you should have fun picking out the subtle changes over the course of years of cellaring. With the Brett-fermented beers, you can expect the typical barnyard-like character to slowly dissipate over the years; however, the beer can become very dry as the yeast tends to consume everything in its path when given enough time to work.
To get you started, here is a list of beers that should be widely available to help you start on your path to filling your beer cellar. I want to make one important note before I list some good starter beers, and that is always buy a minimum of two of whatever beer you want to age: one to drink right away and one to cellar. Take some notes on it after having the first bottle, which will help you remember how it was on Day One and see how it has changed when you open the cellared one.
Another suggestion is buying several of the same beer every year so that you can set up a vertical tasting of the same beer in the future to see how the age has improved or altered the beer. Beer cellars come in handy when you're planning on enjoying a vertical tasting of the same beer, such as Stone Brewing's popular Vertical Epic annual series from the s.
My first beer on the list is Bigfoot Barleywine from Sierra Nevada. This big American Barleywine is not only easy to find, but it usually has the year clearly printed on the cap so there will be no question about its age.
Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout can stand the test of time and can also stand up to a fair amount of aging. With your cellar stocked, the most important question becomes: How long should beers be aged? You will not notice any significant changes in character to most cellar-friendly beers for that first 12 months.
From that point on, how long you want to age the beer is dependent on a couple of factors. If that were true, you could take a horrible beer and age it to perfection with enough time. But there is no denying that a beer will change after being cellared. In the absence of light and in the right temperature, there will be some mellowing of character in some beers; for example, a highly hopped Double IPA will lose some of its intense hop aroma and the bitterness may become less sharp and more rounded as the malt flavors come to the foreground.
A malty Barleywine or Imperial Stout will oxidize slightly and start to give you some dark fruity tones like raisins, plums or figs.
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