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It starts like most things do, with good intentions. You get some special beer and decide to stash a few bottles away to age for a bit and come together flavor wise.
If you’re like most of us, you push it to the back of your cellar (or closet, or whatever) and forget about it. Which is what you really have to do, forget about it long enough so it can age, but then the trick is remembering to drink it. Because while you’re busy doing other things years go by, and those special beers peak then decline silently, wounded soldiers dying on a field of battle, forgotten…very sad.
Part of this is just human nature, the propensity to acquire stuff. Having a cellar full of beer feels like money in the bank. But beer is just more stuff until you drink it, and this stuff has a limited shelf life. Homebrewers are particularly susceptible to this. We like to brew enough to have backlogs of our beers to taste as they age. But if you don’t keep strict track of what you have, or if you can’t see your inventory at a glance, that beer you put your heart and soul into can oxidize to the point of being undrinkable.
There are a few steps you can take to make sure this sad state of affairs never comes to pass in your beer cellar. First off, protect your beer from the elements, especially oxygen, starting at bottling time. Bottle conditioning is preferable if you want to age the beer, and in fact all of the beers that fared the best in the recent ASN ROS tasting were bottle conditioned. Counter pressure bottling is great for competitions, but the beer will only hold up for months, not years. If you are counter pressure bottling however, make sure to bang the bottleneck after filling, so that you cap entirely on foam and push out any oxygen. For bottle-conditioned beer you can fill the bottles higher than normal, to within a half inch of the top. The small amount of oxygen in the headspace will be consumed by the refermentation in the bottle.
The sealing method also has a great deal to do with their longevity. Crowns are more oxygen permeable than corks, so use them only for beers that will be consumed within a few months. For your precious strong beers that you want to age for years, the best course of action is to cork, cage or cap, and then wax seal the bottles to give them the best chances for survival.
In your cellar, practice rotation, just like any beer distributor or retailer would. Pull the older beer to the front and put newer beers in the back. Only age very strong (over 10%), and highly roasted (those flavors stand up to oxidation better), or very acidic lambics. And don’t wait too many years to do that special vertical tasting of barleywines, because the results may be disappointing. Here’s a recipe that should stand up to a year or two of aging.
Quadruple: all grain recipe
Ingredients:
14 lbs. Belgian or German pilsner malt
2.5 lbs. dark candi sugar-30 min.
.25 lbs. chocolate or carafa malt
4.5 AAU’s Hallertau or Styrian Goldings hop pellets-90 minutes
1 tsp. Irish moss - 20 minutes
.5 oz Hallertauer or equivalent-15 min.
2-step Trappist ale yeast starter
Method:
Heat 18 quarts brewing water to 164°. Mash in crushed grain to reach 151°. Hold for 90 minutes. Stir in about 3 quarts boiling water to raise temperature to 168°. Recirculate gently until runoff appears clear, then sparge with 168° water to collect 6.5 gallons. Boil for 2 hours, adding hops and candi sugar as indicated. Cool to 70° and pitch yeast starter. Aerate thoroughly. O.G.=1.100
Quadruple: extract recipe
Ingredients:
10 lbs dry malt extract
2.5 lbs dark candi sugar
.25 lbs chocolate or carafa malt
6 AAU’s Hallertauer or Styrian Goldings hop pellets-60 min.
1 tsp. Irish moss - 20 minutes
2-step Trappist ale yeast starter
Method:
Steep crushed grain in a large grain bag in 6.5 gals. brewing water (or as much as your brewpot will hold. If necessary, use two pots). Remove grains water reaches 170°. Dissolve malt extract into the brewing water and boil for 90 minutes, adding hops and candi sugar as indicated. Cool to 70° and pitch yeast starter. Aerate thoroughly. O.G. =1.100.
Paul Sullivan began homebrewing in 1992, and has won three Gold Medals in AHA National competitions. He is a professional musician, writer and teacher living in New York City. For more information, go to paulsullivan.com.
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