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pimpsqueak

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Just stumbled on 2 surviving bottles of my 1st attempt at an AIPA.
Efficiency went all to hell and it was really an overly bitter APA.

15 months later and I'm wishing I had kept a lot more bottles in a dark and forgotten corner.
The fruit punchiness (Citra and Amarillo) has become really subdued, allowing the delicious piney, resinous bitterness to come forward.
If I had any more bottles I would be entering it in all the comps this year.

What forgotten gems have you stumbled upon and how did they compare to the beer when it was fresh?
 
Most of mine don't hang around long enough (and really I've only been brewing for just shy of a year now) for them to radically improve with age. The ones that have hung around, aren't ever getting better, like my Christmas Pudding porter, brewed using the water the puds were boiled in.

I did taste a K&K Coopers IPA my mate brewed in 2010 the other weekend. Added 20g of Tettnang at 20 minutes, fermented with S-04, bottled and left for 2 and a half years.

It tasted like a good Belgian Dubbel. I actually preferred it to the Dubbel I had at The Wig and Pen the same weekend. I have no idea what magic had occurred to cause this transformation, but it had fantastic raisiny/date-y dried fruit character, and given he told me the recipe before we drank it, surprised the hell out of me.
 
Amazing what time can do to some brews.

I'm entering a Belgian in the NSW comp this year, brewed almost two years ago. When it was fresh, it was all over the place, flavours, esters, rough edges, and alcohol hitting you over the head from all directions. Now it's smooth as, totally integrated, and a lovely complex drink.

Many of my AIPAs and APAs get better in the bottle over the months it takes me to get through a batch.

On the other hand, there are some brews where you breath a sigh of relief when the batch is finished, they never rise above blaaah.
 
I have one of each brew that Ive done going back probably a year and a half(ish)

When my brother in law comes to visit at the end of next month we are going to have a bash at them... there must be close to 50 bottles in there so will be interesting to make the journey through my brewing history..

A true journey from Kits (mostly partials) to AG brews.

TBH, the sooner I get though them the better as I could do with the bottles ;)
 
I hide mine :lol: old scotch bottle tubes and now in my bar....I love finding old bottles and figuring out what is inside!
 
Not quite forgotten or that old, but I've got a Pale Strong Lager (a mistake in itself) that I brewed a few months back.

It was okay, not flash, but drinkable (a little too drinkable, sometimes - at 6.9%).

Between not being that fussed with it, my mood for IPA, and Dry July, it's spent (well the half keg left and the couple of bottles surplus) about 3 months ageing.

Gave it to a fellow AHBer in a private swap, as well as a couple of grolsch 1.5L magnums to my 2 brothers to watch football. The brothers tried it about 3 months ago, and 'it was okay, at least it was free'.

Now, they both like it (one hates Carlsberg Elephant, one loves CE) - the one that hates CE raves that it's got all the flavour of CE, without that metho-ey, burny, cheap spirits taste.

The fellow AHBer asked me for the recipe (which was duly given).

Goomba
 
I've never been drunk enough to forget about beer.
 
not forgotten, just too bad to drink. 13.3% spiced barleywine was fantastic at around the 3 year mark
 
I have some Cooper's Dark Ale from about 10 years ago. I used dark brown sugar instead of white sugar. It was never quite right. Tastes a bit rummy now, but still wrong, as the hops have gone away.

I also re-discovered some Pale Weizenbock from a couple of years ago too. It's very malt-accented, but quite fizzy.

There are still some very old stubbies from my first batches of weizen using W3056, ostensibly kept as a yeast bank.
 
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