Aging pale ales has turned out rubbish!

[manson81]

I've been too busy making a few kegs for my housewarming party next weekend to make any beer for my own drinking, so my last keg blew tonight!

I usually bottle a couple of Pet tallies with each brew, to go into my "archive". Anyway, I cracked a couple open tonight that were around 6 months old and originally started off as very tasty, crisp pale ales.

Anyway, the two I opened tasted like any generic wheat beer you could buy at a German pub. Don't mind this sometimes but tonight I wanted pale ales!

Have decided that if I'm to keep beers in an archive, I should probably keep them in the fridge to stop the yeasts throwing off these esters after fermentation has finished, or just bottle and drink while fresh(ish) at the same time as the keg...

 

[MaltyHops]

Don't use PET bottles for long term (archiving) storage, anything 12 months or more - they let CO2 leak out (albeit very slowly) and let O2 in. Use glass bottles instead.

Do use PET bottles to monitor carbing levels in the first few months.

 

[lael]

Doesn't it depend on style also? My understanding was that ipa's will lose their fresh hoppiness over time in the bottle and are better drunk within a few months?

 

[squirt in the turns]

I would say that both lael and MaltyHops' theories would be contributing factors, manson, although you don't state if this ale started out particularly hoppy. That said, I haven't used PET bottles for a long time so can't really comment from experience, but I would have thought 6 months would be OK. Like MaltyHops states, I was always told they're good for up to a year.

Also, unless your palette is super sensitive to esters, I wouldn't have thought secondary fermentation would produce enough of them to make a pale ale taste like a hefeweizen. I'd be inclined to think something else might be going on.

 

[manticle]

Beer should be stored cold - heat accelerates ageing/staling/chemical reactions. PET, hop fading etc will also be factors as suggested.
Only some styles benefit from ageing as suggested.

 

[Parks]

Doesn't it depend on style also? My understanding was that ipa's will lose their fresh hoppiness over time in the bottle and are better drunk within a few months?

I actually found my bottled beer held hop character better than the same batch kegged over time.

 

[verysupple]

Also, unless your palette is super sensitive to esters, I wouldn't have thought secondary fermentation would produce enough of them to make a pale ale taste like a hefeweizen. I'd be inclined to think something else might be going on.

The yeast certainly can produce enough esters during secondary fermentation (carbonation) to exceed sensory thresholds, however the bottles would have to be stored pretty hot for it to happen and it would have been present immediately after carbonation, not only months later.

The character the OP was talking about only seemed to come after significant time in the bottles, so that suggests it occurred after the yeast metabolised the priming sugar. Now, part of the signature trait of German wheat beer is phenolic character, which is much more likely to become noticeable at a later stage. There are a few ways it can happen including slow reactions with chlorine (from some sanitisers or mains water) and certain bacteria.

The bacteria problem may be more prominent in PET bottles because, as others have mentioned, PET is slightly O2 permeable which could allow the tiny amount of bacteria present in unpasturised beer do do their thing.

So there's lots of things that could have caused it, but as always the best advice for pale ales (and most hoppy beers) is store them cold and drink them fresh.

 

[manson81]

Thanks for the replies guys. I won't be aging any more pale ales!

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

You dont like Coopers Vintage Ale.......

 

[Bribie G]

Depends what you mean by a pale ale. Most ales that are pale to copper in colour fall into two categories:

UK Bitters, Special Bitters, ESBs etc that are 20 th century "running beers" brewed quickly and sent out to the pubs to be conditioned in the casks in the cellars and served over a few days
American Pale Ales that, to the best of my knowledge, are brewed quickly then filtered and consumed at bars and brewpubs over a few days.

Some "living" bottle conditioned beers such as Coopers varieties do indeed change over time for the better but the majority are at their peak after a few weeks at most, and the commercial examples like JS Nine Tales or Wells Bombardier are pasteurised and are as good as they will ever be the day they leave the brewery.

What are you trying to emulate that needs long maturing and conditioning?

The original 19th century "Pale Ales" were a product of the Industrial Revolution that allowed the production of pale malts at a time that glassware was becoming affordable for common folks. The new amber beers proved a sensation but they were nothing like today's pale ales. They were "keeping beers" that would be stored at the brewery until mature after a few months and sent out to the trade. Probably mostly around 7% ABV as well. Oh for a time machine.

Then in the early 20th century the breweries bought up huge estates of pubs, dropped the gravities and went onto the modern "running beers" that were sent out for cellar conditioning, thus freeing up expensive real estate at the breweries.

I've also kept pale ale styles for months and they rarely seem to improve. They become more complex but not in a clean or refreshing way. Best result I ever had was with ten bottles of a Coopers Sparkling that got lost in a wardrobe for about seven months. Nectar. However that says a lot about the yeast.

 

[Yob]

You dont like Coopers Vintage Ale.......

Nope

 

[manson81]

Nope

I do, I love it. The stuff I was drinking last night was as far from tasting like vintage ale as you could get!

One started off similar to little creatures and the other started off similar to fat yak. Both turned to rubbish Haha.