Aging Beer

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Snow

Beer me up, Scotty!
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It's been about a year that I've been homebrewing now, and I've been putting away a few bottles of every batch to campare their flavour after aging. How long do you guys reckon I should be aging my beers to get optimal flavour performance? I've heard that stouts and strong ales, etc can improve for up to three years, but lighter beers should be drunk a lot earlier. Is there perhaps, any kind of formula I can apply regarding F.G. v storage time? Should I drink all my pale ales now and leave my stout for a couple more years?

- Snow.
 
my beers only ever last ~6months max, but i'd recken that 18 months would be as much as you could need for almost any beer, though i'm sure other ppl can tell you more specific time periods ;)
 
Aging Beers

I have been told to use the following as a guide line...

Lagers / pales upto 9 months.

Darks/ stouts 6 to 18 months.

Real heavy/strong beers 12 months onwards.

Hope this helps...
 
Thanks Ken. Now I'm looking forward to drinking my aged pale ales this weekend! :chug:
 
Yes and an Imperial Stout or Barleywine can be at their best after 3 years

However, not all beers are equal

a kit and kilo, drink al by 6 months at the latest

kit + extract, a bit longer, depends on how heavily hopped they are

A stout made with say 300g each of black patent and roast barley and hopped to 45 IBU will be unbearably bitter to drink when bottled, this is exactly the kind of beer, though, that will IMPROVE with aging (and lose its bitterness) If the beer tastes niice now, whay wait to drink it?

My barleywine had about 250g of leaf hops in the kettle. That will keep and improve for a while





Jovial Monk
 
I forgot about a black beer from a kit and additives for 12 months. On opening it smelled good, but on tasting it had started to get the vegemite taste to it (yeast bite)from sitting on the mud in the bottom(one of my first brews)
 
dont know how you blokes can age your beer for that long.i find it very hard as every day in the territory is beer drinking day :rolleyes:

cheers
big d
B)
 
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