Come With Me, to the Vaults...
May 17 '00
We waited, expectantly, reverently, for the beer to pour. The journey it had begun over 3,000 miles and twenty-six years ago was almost over; the journey from mash-tun to mouth. Carefully the bottle was tipped, and the walnut-brown liquid streamed gently into the waiting snifters, two ounces for each of us.
This was a sampling of the 1968 bottling, the very first bottling, of Thomas Hardy's Ale, held in 1994, at the Farmhouse, in Emmaus, PA. The 1968 was the culmination of a vertical tasting of 12 different years of Thomas Hardy's, from the very young to this hoary oldster. I was smart enough to have volunteered to pour and serve that night to a panel of beer experts including John Hansell, publisher of Malt Advocate magazine, Stephen Beaumont, noted Canadian beer writer, and George Saxon, the importer of the beer. It was a pivotal night in my life, when I decided this was going to be my career. I take my nickname from that night; I was the beerfly on the wall, watching, listening, and, luckily, sampling.
I learned a lot that night, about the vocabulary and physiology of tasting, about the manners of serious tasting, and about Thomas Hardy's Ale. I also learned how some beers can improve tremendously with age, and I have been experimenting with this ever since.
First, what happens to a beer as it ages? If it is a bottle-conditioned beer, bottled with a dose of live yeast in a manner not unlike the refermentation that gives good champagne its bubbly nature, the beer changes through the action of the yeast. The yeast will scour oxygen out of the beer, protecting it from oxidation (more on that shortly), but it will also continue the process of fermentation. More by-products of fermentation will be produced, generally of a darker, richer sort. A slight amount of alcohol will be produced, but not a noticeable amount. Most importantly, a beer with a lot of residual sugars will dry out, become less cloying.
A filtered beer, one without yeast (or even a conditioned one without sufficient healthy yeast), will almost certainly oxidize. This may create disappointing aromas and taste like that of wet cardboard; a flat, somewhat blandly acidic note. But in a big beer with plenty of residual sugars, oxidation can create a very pleasant sherried note that complements some beers amazingly well.
Hops will inevitably fade. Only hugely hopped beers like Sierra Nevada Bigfoot will retain any hop character, and then only out to about six or seven years. After that, beers that have depended on hops for their soul will fade and become flabby and dull.
Fruit fades fast, even in the high-quality fruit beers. A fresh Liefmans Frambozen will fill a room with raspberry aroma, at two years it is a very nicely mellowed raspberry beer, at five years it is barely recognizable as a fruit beer.
Spices are unpredictable. A highly spiced beer may fade to the base beer, or it may stay spicy as the beer fades, leaving a nasty overspiced liquid.
Next is to know what beers will age well. It is almost always a crapshoot: even beers that you have aged successfully may or may not pan out, even from bottle to bottle within a given year. You pay your money, you take your chances.
With help, you can maximize your luck by selecting the right beers and keeping them well. Big beers, of 7%ABV strength and up, are usually good bets for interesting changes over one to five years, the bottle-conditioned ones being the best shots. Acidic or "funky" beers, like lambics or Belgian browns/reds, are likely to hold up well. I had a 49-year-old Liefmans Goudenband last spring that was quite drinkable, if just a bit woody. Big hops will help preserve a beer, but remember the fade and age them accordingly. A big beer with big hops actually makes a very interesting subject; as the hops fade, the malt will come to the fore, and may give some unexpected beauty to your taste.
Keeping beers is a lot like keeping wines. Keep them cool, but not cold. Cold will slow the aging process down to the point of being insignificant--which misses the whole point--and may also stun the yeast that is keeping the beer safe from oxygen. Keep them dark: light is death on beer, it turns hop aroma into skunk aroma. Most importantly, keep them away from strangers. One of the saddest sights you'll see is some philistine polishing off the last drops of a 1994 Sierra Nevada Celebration, burping, and remarking "Hey, that wasn't bad. Got anymore?" I've been there, I've seen it happen.
When you do open one of your precious beauties, treat it gently. If it's bottle-conditioned, you should decant it slowly into a large glass so that the yeast bed is undisturbed. Smell it immediately. If it's rank, or unexpectedly sour, you may have a bad one. If it's merely musty, it will probably clear up in a matter of minutes. Smell it carefully, enjoy. Taste it. Then relax, knowing that your beer has finally finished its long, long journey, and is safe in your mouth at last.
Some Good Bets
Here are some of my favorite beers for aging.
Chimay Grande Reserve (blue label)
Geary's Hampshire Ale
Gale's Prize Old Ale
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot
Sierra Nevada Celebration
Old Dominion Millennium
Old Dominion's Winter Seasonals (They've done a Triple, an Imperial Stout, and a Scottish Ale: all aged beautifully. Big winter seasonals are often good bets; brewers lavish special attention on these beers.)
Samichlaus
Thomas Hardy's Ale
Samuel Adams Triple Bock
New Haven Belle Dock (Only one batch was ever made, in 1994, but some of it is still floating around in liquor stores. One of the best-aging beers I've ever come across: grab it if you see it.)
Liefmans Goudenband
Rodenbach Grand Cru
Fuller's Vintage Ale
Clipper City Winter Reserve (Don't let it go much past 2 years, but at a year it's tremendous.)
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Epinions.com ID:
beerfly
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Member: Lew Bryson
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 82 members
About Me:
One bourbon, one Scotch, one beer, eh? I'll take Kentucky Spirit, Scapa, and HopDevil.
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