Aging beer

[JoanofArc]

Am I correct that better flavor comes with letting the beer age?
I've done two brews now and think I'm tasting better beer as it ages. I bottle and have left it in 68° until putting around 4 in the fridge, letting condition and then drinking.

 

[brewcat]

To an extent...

 

[Iseneye]

Depends on what your time definition of age is.

If you have every part of your process down then in general aging is a bad thing for most beers. If you have brewed a poor beer then aging can make it better.

 

[bracconiere]

i'm not sure, but more yeast will settle out of it....

 

[RM-MN]

It depends. It depends on the beer. It depends on the ABV of the beer, and on the color of the beer and the recipe. A wheat beer will gain little from aging other than allowing more yeast to settle. An RIS will gain a lot from aging it. Mine was still improving when the last bottle was gone at 2 years. Making a blanket statement that aging improves a beer isn't quite right.

 

[MrHadack]

In my experience, dark, high ABV beers age very well.

I brew a 10% Russian Imperial Stout every year around this time and age it 6 months to have in the fall. I've saved several bottles for more than a year and do a vertical tasting with each new batch. Each year, the aged version of the same beer is much, much better than the fresh batch. It's not even close.

When I had a couple bottles from 4 years / batches saved up we did a tasting of all 4 (aged 3 years, 2, 1, and a fresh bottle.) The difference was remarkable between fresh and 1 year, subtle but noticeable between 1 and 2 year bottles, and undetectable between 2 and 3 years aging. So the is a ceiling to it.

Another example: I brew an 11% Belgian Quad every now and then. I gave a few to my brother along with some pilsners I made. He gave one of each to a friend of his at a cookout. The guy is a bud light type, so he just had them in the back of his basement fridge until my brother found them 4 years later. He gave them back to me and we cracked them open. The Quad was so spectacular I called my neighbor to come over to try some. The pilsner was completely bad... horrific. Skunked and disgusting.

 

[MaaZeus]

I belong to the school of thought that if the beer requires significant amount of aging then maybe it is just not a good beer / recipe OR you screwed up something in the process. Except maybe super high ABV beers and barleywines, but just long enough to reduce the alcohol bite. Beer is not wine or mead, it never was. If I I know anything about the history of beer It always was a drink that could be produced very quickly while still taste good and be easily quaffed down. But again, high ABV monastery ales and barley wines are an exception.

 

[SanPancho]

According to LoDo folks their process avoids the need to age dark/malty beers.

So theres that.

 

[MrHadack]

I belong to the school of thought that if the beer requires significant amount of aging then maybe it is just not a good beer / recipe OR you screwed up something in the process.

According to LoDo folks their process avoids the need to age dark/malty beers.

I'd make the differentiation between words like "need" and "require" in regards to aging, with other terms such as "benefit from" or "improve with." All the dark, high ABV beers I age are also very good when fresh. There are just other changes that only time can provide. For example, if you bottle beer too quickly after fermentation we all know one can end up with diacetyl flavors. Letting it rest fixes that. In somewhat the same fashion there there are other chemical processes involving other compounds that will change the flavor as the beer gets older. Take for example what happens to really hoppy beers: after a month or two, the hop flavors and aromas drop off. After a couple years, the compounds break down to the point where it's flat-out bad tasting. Even with dark beers it's possible to get worsening flavors with age like oxidation / cardboard flavors. In fact, my neighbor and I split a Darklord 2015 this past Christmas and it was baaaad. It was definitely past the point where aging helped.

So I guess the truth of the matter is not ALL beers will benefit from aging, but some do. The Quad and RIS I make are the only ones I age, and even then I only age a 12 pack or so and drink the rest fresh. The aged ones are a real treat, though, and worth the wait. The only way to find out is age a bottle or two from a specific recipe and try it down the line.

 

[RM-MN]

According to LoDo folks their process avoids the need to age dark/malty beers.

So theres that.

Maybe they just like bad beer? Maybe they have never tasted a good aged beer?

 

[Lefou]

If you're making lighter colored, mildly hopped session ales they will be more susceptible to flavor changes over time. Don't expect a 4% light lager or NEIPA to age well.
Hoppy ales or dark beers over 6-7%ABV can age and actually improve, depending on your taste. I kept a six of Victory Golden Monkey tripel for over a year and it changed. The hops moderated and spicing flavors emerged. The beer still kicked my ass at 9.5%ABV.
Was the Golden Monkey good, or even better, than fresh? That's a matter of opinion especially if your focus is on hops instead of esters and malt.

 

[Lefou]

Maybe they just like bad beer? Maybe they have never tasted a good aged beer?

If they're like me the beer doesn't last long enough to discern a noticeable difference. I'm in the habit of brewing and bottling mildly hopped stuff with an ABV of 5% or lower. Again, refrigerated storage matters.

 

[JimRausch]

Weirdly enough, yesterday I found a bottle of my 3rd batch ever, brewed on 2/3/2012. It was a Honey Ginger Wheat, and my tasting notes from back in 2012 said "Not a bad stomach tonic, but not much as a beer". It was bottled with an O2 scavenging cap and I waxed the top.
My tasting notes yesterday would have been "Wow, this is a great ginger beer. Good ginger notes without being overpowering". This is a batch that I wouldn't have thought would age well, but it did.

 

[mashpaddled]

It really depends on the beer, how long it ages and whether you enjoy the taste of aged beer.

If your beer has off flavors or other problems that age out then age is definitely helpful but I would rather fix what is wrong in the recipe or brewing process than rely on aging every beer to fix problems. You'll miss out on some of the fresh beer flavors (particularly with hops and other delicate ingredients) by having to wait to drink every beer.

There was a time many years ago on this forum where the dominant position on brewing was that the best way to brew was to leave your beer in the fermenter for a month and then bottle and wait another three years. That was the only way to brew good beer--supposedly--and any problems in your brewing were necessarily caused by not waiting long enough. Glad to see that view has mostly gone away.

 

[MrHadack]

There was a time many years ago on this forum where the dominant position on brewing was that the best way to brew was to leave your beer in the fermenter for a month and then bottle and wait another three years. That was the only way to brew good beer--supposedly--and any problems in your brewing were necessarily caused by not waiting long enough. Glad to see that view has mostly gone away.

Yeow. That's fairly extreme!

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I brewed a Barleywine last August and aged a six pack in my fridge waiting for Christmas. I preferred the fresh beer. The beer at Christmas was still excellent, but the fresh hop flavors were bright and enjoyable in the fresh beer. I think that any improvement over time is due to bias and the feeling that the beer is better because of age. Then again my Barleywine could have tasted exactly the same and I expected more from it after aging. The problem with aging things is that you can’t go back in time and do a real side by side comparison.

 

[RM-MN]

I brewed a Barleywine last August and aged a six pack in my fridge waiting for Christmas.

By putting the barleywine in the fridge you pretty much stopped the aging. Next time let it sit out at room temp.

 

[MaaZeus]

There was a time many years ago on this forum where the dominant position on brewing was that the best way to brew was to leave your beer in the fermenter for a month and then bottle and wait another three years. That was the only way to brew good beer--supposedly--and any problems in your brewing were necessarily caused by not waiting long enough. Glad to see that view has mostly gone away.

I guess this has something to do with some people having a kind of inferiority syndrome compared to wines and mead, people thinking that if they get better with age then our beer must do so as well! And while penis stretching with wine brewers and maizers they completely forget that NOT having to age to produce something that is good tasting is actually a fricking boon!

 

[RPh_Guy]

Beer oxidizes over time. I generally prefer less oxidized beer.

I prefer to handle my yeast with care so they don't produce off-flavors that need to be aged out.

The only beers to age in my opinion contain mixed Brett cultures that develop complexity over time, while the Brett protects against overt staling.

Refrigeration doesn't stop oxidation, just slows it.