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Muggus

Case swap whore
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G'day folks,

Gonna try and keep this short and sweet - for a change.

I do recall reading a book (name alludes me) from the late, great Michael Jackson (beer connoisseur, not the singing dude), who seemed to like to relate several beers, and beer styles, particularly Belgian, to styles of wine from across the world. Intrigued me a bit at the time, but without prior knowledge to the wines (or beers for that matter) in question I really had no frame of reference.
Now, a few years older, wiser, with a good base in the wine, as well as beer, I do kinda get what he's going on about, and do notice a few parallels between the two beverages...how certain styles of one can be related in some way to others by their characterstics, if not perhaps processes as welll....Eisbeer = eiswien perhaps?

Anyhow, I ponder this whilst randomly uncovering an old bottle of beer from my cellar. A bottle of what I called "Alpha Male Pale Ale". Bottled February 2008, this was undoubtedly the best APA/AAA I brewed to date, despite being an extract brew, and despite trying to replicate my recipe on numerous occasions....got a gold medal in the state comp along the line too.

This beer is STILL drinking quite well, hops are suprisingly fresh after over 3 1/2 years, and the malt character whilst starting to drop out texturely, still has a nice flavour. Whilst this is great, any other beers from that time are terrible, even APA's i've brewed that were decent, seem to be shite within a year!
I found the same thing with a Belgian dubbel that I brewed around the same time. Got a few awards too, and is as good as ever!

So my question is, like a great wine that will taste good young and with age, does beer have the same sort of potential?

And hey, if you wanna discuss what beer styles are like certain wine styles...whyne not! har har!

Cheers
Mugs
 
Have a read of 'Grape vs Grain' by Professor Charles Bamforth.

I have an almost 3 year old barleywine that is ageing beautifully as well as Coopers Vintage Ales from 1998, 1999 and 2000. An oak aged RIS that is nearly 18 months old now is just starting to become balanced.

I also age raspberry cyser. I find that after a few years it really smooths out and is a much nice drink.

Surprised to hear an APA lasting that long but i love ageing beer to see the changes in malt character/complexity.

I keep telling myself to age my english IPAs for longer before drinking them but am yet to do so.
 
I've always wondered - would there be a benefit to adjusting the ph of beer you plan to age, in the same way you do for wine?
 
I've always wondered - would there be a benefit to adjusting the ph of beer you plan to age, in the same way you do for wine?

Funnily enough large amounts of roasted malts in the RIS have done just that!

Rather than adjust pH i would increase the IBU as the bitterness fades with age.
 
I've found some aged high alc beers (both HB and commercial) take on something of a sherry-like quality. Wine-like I guess you could say. I've read others suggest this is oxidation so it is probably entirely irrelevant to what you're getting at BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS INTERESTING NONETHELESS.
 
I've found some aged high alc beers (both HB and commercial) take on something of a sherry-like quality. Wine-like I guess you could say. I've read others suggest this is oxidation so it is probably entirely irrelevant to what you're getting at BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS INTERESTING NONETHELESS.

My almost 3 year old barleywine has developed sherry/port aromas/flavours and the old CVAs also have this characteristic.

The BJCP style guidelines for EBW - Link - talk about this characteristic developing in aged beers.

It does raise a few interesting questions that are vageuly on topic.

Winemakers do different things depending on how long you want the wine to age for - tannin content through skin contact (in red wine), amount of new oak etc.

Should we as brewers be thinking along the same lines? As TimF mentioned, reducing pH is a possibility. I go high on IBU as bitterness is something we can control. As a beer ages and the IBU decrease the FG then has an impact which may make a beer seem sweeter than it is so making sure your FG is low is also something we need to think about (IMO).
 
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