Just bottled an IPA that was in fermentor for 2.5 years

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dwhite60 said:
Sad thing is, to make another batch and age it for 18 years I'll be 73 when it's ready.

I've been hitting these over the years. Sometimes three or four a year, sometimes none. Been interesting to taste the flavor changes it's been through.

All the Best,
D. White
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D. White - you are the man. I'm going to brew up a big Barleywine sometime soon - stash the bottles away somewhere - and do this same thing. I can't imagine how cool it would be tasting something you brewed 10 years ago!

My sons are 12 and 13. Maybe I should brew a Barleywine or an Imperial Stout and stash a case away for their 21st birthdays.

Thanks to this thread and to you for the inspiration.
 
slym2none said:
Gary_Oak can do better in one week than this guy can in 2.5 years.

:ban:
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Gary_Oak has infiltrated the rest of the forum. He needs to stay in his degenerated thread. We must not allow it to spread!

Everytime I see an update on this thread I get excited. To keep that excitement contained, I'm going to have to ask for everyone to cease posting until the OP returns with tasting notes.
 
Vamptrump said:
Gary_Oak has infiltrated the rest of the forum. He needs to stay in his degenerated thread. We must not allow it to spread!

Everytime I see an update on this thread I get excited. To keep that excitement contained, I'm going to have to ask for everyone to cease posting until the OP returns with tasting notes.
Click to expand...

sorry.gif
 
Alright, I am back. I see a few folks are eager to read about how the beer tastes. Sorry I didn't get on sooner to type up a response, just didn't get around to it.

So on Saturday night (day 14 of in the bottle), I cracked open a bottle with a buddy of mine. I could not wait to taste it! It did fizz *a little*, not much, but there were signs of carbonation! Very little however, I poured the beer into the glass (half for me, half for my buddy - wasn't goign to waste 2 bottles if it needed more conditioning). We gave each other a salute, and drank up.

It was flat, and I can't stand flat beer (which is why I don't bother tasting out of the primary - I'd throw out every batch based on the pre-conditioned taste). No signs of hops at all, it did have a *very faint* beer aroma. No foul smell, no hops smell, kind of like light beer I guess. Drinkign it, it was hard to get away from the flatness of it and it was not very good. Extremely bitter (I love IPAs but I made a bitter-beer face) but without the tasty benefits of the hops. I don't know what beer tastes like after autolysis occurs, but the beer did not taste good, but it certainly dit not smell bad which makes me think autolysis did not happen. It did not taste sour so I don't believe the beer to be infected. I know this will probably annoy a few of you but the weak carbonation gave me hope and I am going to give it more time to see if those yeasts can reproduce some more and add some more CO2 to the beer.

If you are interested in this story, please give it time. On the day I bottled it, my intent was to just throw the batch away but couldn't get myself to do it since the beer smelled fine and did not have any signs of infection. We feared the yeast would be dead to few, and it would probably take a while to condition if it conditioned at all.

Note: I updated the original post, marked 5/14/2015 update with the above posted added below that.
 
or you could take 3 min to pop off the caps, sprinkle in a few dry yeast crumbs and recap. great thread OP and no offense, but i think we're all starting to see how it took 2.5 years for this to get bottled :)
 
itsratso said:
or you could take 3 min to pop off the caps, sprinkle in a few dry yeast crumbs and recap. great thread OP and no offence, but i think we're all starting to see how it took 2.5 years for this to get bottled :)
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No offense taken. Like I said, I lost interest. There was a time when I wished the time away so the 2 weeks of conditionining would "hurry up & pass."

Is it as simple as as what you are describing? Just buy a packet of dry yeast (like the ones that come with the can kits) and sprinkle it in?
 
I can't speak from experience on drinking a beer that was affected with autolyzed yeast. A friend of mine tried to explain it using Marmite and Vegemite as an example as these are made via autolysis.

It's says a lot that it's actually carbonating some, didn't get infected, and there are no signs of autolysis after sitting around for 2.5 years in primary. The drop off of hop aroma was to be expected.

With the surge of Austin asking for front page article submissions, I know I would love to read a full report on this unplanned experiment in a full blown article.
 
yep. you only need a few grains for each bottle, others will chime in with more specific instructions or you can just search here for it.
 
fanch75 said:
He didn't say mcuh beyond "not bad." I think he was afraid to hurt my feelings.
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I know that feeling. I had multiple friends raving about a terrible beer I made as one of my first batches. I knew it was bad, floating proteins in the bottle, syrupy mouth-feel, extremely unbalanced, and at the time under-carbonated.

I've learned to no longer trust my friends in matters of beer reviewing. I need to join a home brew club in my area, at least then I should be able to get honest opinions. Although I believe it is in human nature to tell white lies when face-to-face with someone to prevent issues.
 
Thanks for the update! I think most of us would have been surprised if it were any good.

Hope you can give it some carbonation :mug:
 
fanch75 said:
He didn't say mcuh beyond "not bad." I think he was afraid to hurt my feelings.
Click to expand...

Vamptrump said:
I know that feeling. I had multiple friends raving about a terrible beer I made as one of my first batches.
Click to expand...

Ah yes.... the dreaded "Friend Bias". Have that from a few buddies. My partner is a pretty good taste tester, if she doesn't like something she's pretty blunt about it :D
 
Vamptrump said:
I know that feeling. I had multiple friends raving about a terrible beer I made as one of my first batches. I knew it was bad, floating proteins in the bottle, syrupy mouth-feel, extremely unbalanced, and at the time under-carbonated.

I've learned to no longer trust my friends in matters of beer reviewing. I need to join a home brew club in my area, at least then I should be able to get honest opinions. Although I believe it is in human nature to tell white lies when face-to-face with someone to prevent issues.
Click to expand...

What we like to do to avoid this is grab a few bottles of a similar style beer, and the blind taste test our batch along with the other beers that should be similar. That way, no one else knows which beer is which and they tend to be more honest about it. Plus, it's fun to compare and it's a good reason to get together and drink more beer! :tank:
 
Cincyfan78 said:
What we like to do to avoid this is grab a few bottles of a similar style beer, and the blind taste test our batch along with the other beers that should be similar. That way, no one else knows which beer is which and they tend to be more honest about it. Plus, it's fun to compare and it's a good reason to get together and drink more beer! :tank:
Click to expand...

This is a good idea. Unfortunately it probably won't work that much for me. I've been brewing a lot of beers without a similar commercial counterpart. A blind taste test would still be able to pin point what my beer was. I would have to go in with people not knowing what I brewed.
 
What's with this surge of copy/paste posts. I almost answered it until I remembered seeing the post awhile ago.
 
fanch75 said:
Alright, I am back. I see a few folks are eager to read about how the beer tastes. Sorry I didn't get on sooner to type up a response, just didn't get around to it.

So on Saturday night (day 14 of in the bottle), I cracked open a bottle with a buddy of mine. I could not wait to taste it! It did fizz *a little*, not much, but there were signs of carbonation! Very little however, I poured the beer into the glass (half for me, half for my buddy - wasn't goign to waste 2 bottles if it needed more conditioning). We gave each other a salute, and drank up.

It was flat, and I can't stand flat beer (which is why I don't bother tasting out of the primary - I'd throw out every batch based on the pre-conditioned taste). No signs of hops at all, it did have a *very faint* beer aroma. No foul smell, no hops smell, kind of like light beer I guess. Drinkign it, it was hard to get away from the flatness of it and it was not very good. Extremely bitter (I love IPAs but I made a bitter-beer face) but without the tasty benefits of the hops. I don't know what beer tastes like after autolysis occurs, but the beer did not taste good, but it certainly dit not smell bad which makes me think autolysis did not happen. It did not taste sour so I don't believe the beer to be infected. I know this will probably annoy a few of you but the weak carbonation gave me hope and I am going to give it more time to see if those yeasts can reproduce some more and add some more CO2 to the beer.

If you are interested in this story, please give it time. On the day I bottled it, my intent was to just throw the batch away but couldn't get myself to do it since the beer smelled fine and did not have any signs of infection. We feared the yeast would be dead to few, and it would probably take a while to condition if it conditioned at all.

Note: I updated the original post, marked 5/14/2015 update with the above posted added below that.
Click to expand...

I think we got that :mug:

It is pretty impressive that its at least drinkable after all that time.
 
5/26 update: This past Saturday, the beer hit the 4 week mark in the bottle. Guys, it is disgusting. Carbonation has not improved, the off-flavors seem worse (maybe for the initial tasting my enthusiasm masked this, as I wrote off the bad taste to being flat). There's **** floating around in it, it's just bad. I hate to say it but it will probably be dumped.
 
fanch75 said:
5/26 update: This past Saturday, the beer hit the 4 week mark in the bottle. Guys, it is disgusting. Carbonation has not improved, the off-flavors seem worse (maybe for the initial tasting my enthusiasm masked this, as I wrote off the bad taste to being flat). There's **** floating around in it, it's just bad. I hate to say it but it will probably be dumped.
Click to expand...

**salutes** Nevar forget.
 

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