Ageing beer - anyone do it? How are the results?

[welly2]

Interested in what beers people have been ageing (homebrew or commercial) and how they turned out? How long were they aged for and what environment did you keep them in?

 

[verysupple]

It's a pretty broad question, but I might as well put in my 5c.

I bottle my beers and they are all aged to some degree. It could be two weeks or it could be a couple of years. They're kept in boxes in my kitchen where the temp ranges from ~16 - 20 C depending on the season.

My "standard" ales (pale ales etc. at ~ 1.050 OG) I typically only age long enough to carbonate properly because by then they're tasting good and don't really improve after that - in fact my hoppier ones like APA's tend to go down hill after about 6 - 8 weeks in the bottle. At the other end of the spectrum I did an old ale with an OG of ~1.085 about 28 months ago that only got good maybe 6 months ago.

 

[Kingy]

Most people seem to drink there beers young but all my beers are outstanding at 3 months in the bottle. The edges are more rounded if that makes sence.

 

[barls]

depends on the beer and if it built for it.
i have a cellar under the floor of the house thats fairly stable low temp. I've got bottles of 2007 chimay and others down there.

 

[Helles]

I have a scotch ale that i made about 7 yrs ago
Its just coming really good now
In the garage at fairly stable temps

 

[welly2]

I have a scotch ale that i made about 7 yrs ago
Its just coming really good now
In the garage at fairly stable temps

Wow, 7 years! That's impressive. I've stuck away a couple of bottles of my recent strong ale. I'll try one in 6 months and see how it is.

 

[pcmfisher]

Interested in what beers people have been ageing (homebrew or commercial) and how they turned out? How long were they aged for and what environment did you keep them in?

I see you live In Darwin.
You would want to watch your storage temps for any of your beers up there.

As stated,generally there is probably not much to gain from storing for more than 6 months and quality could actually go down depending on how it's made and stored. That's with the exception of big beers.

 

[pist]

I mostly make pale ales/ipas/all those in between styles and hefs, sometimes regular stouts or porters, so dont really find ageing is warranted and certainly in those styles is detrimental. If i did a higher alcohol beer i.e barleywine or RIS then id be looking at long term storage/conditioning