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EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gurtholfin
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Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

Sampling from my collection of Bourbon County this afternoon...

Really surprised how mellow the 2014 has become. I seem to remember it being the "booziest" of the BCBS that I've had. It had very strong Bourbon flavor. Now the flavors are still there but they are much more mellow...
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

RaceBoarder said:
Sampling from my collection of Bourbon County this afternoon...

Really surprised how mellow the 2014 has become. I seem to remember it being the "booziest" of the BCBS that I've had. It had very strong Bourbon flavor. Now the flavors are still there but they are much more mellow...
Click to expand...

After even 6 months, those will mellow out. They seem to mellow faster than some other similar styles.

Had the regular BCS (2017) on tap yesterday. It holds true to the good versions of the last 2 years: it's not as boozy, just a tinge. Got 2 bottles each of the Regular and Coffee from my store yesterday; there are a few customers at that store where they will hold bottles for us without us even asking. The normal folk were only getting Limit 1 Coffee BCS there, otherwise.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

Why is it that Michigan has the best breweries and wineries around. My wallet is on fire right now.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

dxmnkd316 said:
Why is it that Michigan has the best breweries and wineries around. My wallet is on fire right now.
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For national "regional" breweries, I've long said Founders is the best (judging all their beers from top to bottom). Overall for the body of all breweries? I'd put CO and MN in the mix. Don't know enough about CA/OR to really discuss them but I imagine they are up there in the top 5.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

Brenthoven said:
After even 6 months, those will mellow out. They seem to mellow faster than some other similar styles.

Had the regular BCS (2017) on tap yesterday. It holds true to the good versions of the last 2 years: it's not as boozy, just a tinge. Got 2 bottles each of the Regular and Coffee from my store yesterday; there are a few customers at that store where they will hold bottles for us without us even asking. The normal folk were only getting Limit 1 Coffee BCS there, otherwise.
Click to expand...

Agreed on it mellowing out. I just remember thinking that the 2014 was a "bourbon w/beer flavors" added not the other way around.

I figured they would mellow over time, but I would think the bourbon notes would hold their profile.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

RaceBoarder said:
Agreed on it mellowing out. I just remember thinking that the 2014 was a "bourbon w/beer flavors" added not the other way around.

I figured they would mellow over time, but I would think the bourbon notes would hold their profile.
Click to expand...

In general (with a few exceptions, and probably got lucky on those), about 3 years is the max to hit the prime flavor balance. BCS seems to mellow a bit quicker than the others. Example: 2012 Darkness was sublime, but 2013 was missing something (as of this past March or so). I tend to stick to 1.5-2 years at most, unless I buy from someone's cellar. It's just enough to lose the edginess, but still has all of the flavors going on strong.

Will be having a BCS Coffee for the game tonight, see how that rolls, fresh.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

Anyone else going to pick up the Founder's Canadian Breakfast Stout tomorrow? Curious about all the hype on this.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

RaceBoarder said:
Anyone else going to pick up the Founder's Canadian Breakfast Stout tomorrow? Curious about all the hype on this.
Click to expand...

I've had it twice on tap. Once in MI about 6 months after release (little maple) and then about a year after release in MN (ALL THE MAPLE). I will be hunting for it, to an extent. My store KNOWS I want all they'll sell me, so we'll see what happens.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

Lol


Beer dorks. :D
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

bigblue_dl said:
Jerard is a ****ing dumbass. He's proven it over and over again, and it always gets highlighted in various beer groups.
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.

Now, that Leinie's that has been sitting there for 3 years? Toss that out. ;)

Deschutes' Abyss and Black Butte's Anniversary Year beers, until this year, actually had a "Best AFTER" date. So, yes, age some stouts, barleywines, and porters.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

Or you can, you know, age beers and realize you’ve wasted your time and money oxidizing the **** out of your beer and everything you’ve aged is objectively inferior to when the day you’d bought it.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

dxmnkd316 said:
Or you can, you know, age beers and realize you’ve wasted your time and money oxidizing the **** out of your beer
Click to expand...

The top 3 verticals I've had, all in the past year:

2004-2016 3Floyds Dark Lord
2012-2016 Surly Darkness
2011-2015 Boulder Killer Penguin

Add to that some other older beers, like 2007 Darkness, 2012 Founders Breakfast Stout (NOT KBS), 2014 and 2015 Indeed Rum King...

In those verticals you can literally TASTE the arc from "too old" to "perfect" to "too boozy/sweet/etc."

There is a beer, forget the name, that ON THE BOTTLE says it's good until 2027. It was bottled in 2012. bbdl found one at the Fitz in Eagle River that has a later date than THAT. IIRC it was some odd lambic. The bottle I had is STILL boozy fresh. And I can go get more tomorrow, the store near me has a bunch left. LTD's 3rd Anniversary beers (various) even said on the bottle "Best after Dec 2017" and they were released in June.

SOME beers DO need aging (Bruery, looking at your "diabetes in a bottle" special releases) to even out all the flavors going on and provide a robust balanced beer. Most do NOT need aging, of course. It comes down to style, ingredients, barrel-aging if applicable, etc. Lots of factors. Then yes, it is a guessing game of sorts, of when that beer hits its prime.

General rule is 5 years tops. From my experience, 2-3 years in the max in general.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

Or, you’ve deluded yourself like I did into the notion that aging wine improves wine (it doesn’t, it just changes it) also applies to other alcoholic beverages.

Then you start to understand why aging wines is thought to improve a given wine. That the tannins in red wine that some find too astringent change with time to form other molecules that reduce the astringency of a wine aren’t really present in beer anywhere near the concentration they are in red wine. When you age wine, even for 2-3 months you get a reduction of the fruit flavors but you’ll also find the wine less astringent. You have to balance the reduction in astringency with the loss in the floral notes.

The vast majority of beers that are claimed to be the most improved through aging are beers with a high alcohol content that tend to come with an enormous residual sugar content especially when compared to a dry wine. These beers also don’t have the aggressive tannic quality a young wine might have. The sugars may drop out of the flavor profile, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. It means it’s less sweet but you’ll also see an increase in that cardboard character that tastes like ****.

I’ve aged beers all the way out to seven years. At no point have I thought, “Man, this is so much better now than when I drank it fresh.” I compare my tasting notes between the aged beers and my fresh bottles. In the end, only one beer had ever improved and I can’t prove it was the aging that improved it. That was the Huna down in Tampa.

I’ve changed my mind over the last year. People who have told us all to age beers are full of ****. Anything over a year has destroyed the beer. Eithe rit becomes too acidic, too shallow, or too boring.
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

7 years is most likely too old, and you get the "soy sauce" flavor that is mentioned in the article. That is one thing I agree with, overall.

You have mentioned you like that overly boozy taste in BAs, and I like that, too. Do I prefer it? Depends on the mood. "Better" depends on the person's palate. I prefer a more balanced beer, if I were pressed to make a choice. But there is a "not better" in play, also. Honestly, one of the best beers I've had in the past year was the 2012 Darkness, and that is an opinion that is not uncommon. Whatever they did with that particular batch...it worked.

No delusion here, hence me mentioning that 2004-2016 vert of Dark Lord. Doing that vert gave me a HUGE point of reference as to how a beer changes over time. The 2012-2016 vert of Darkness helped back that up, although that is a smaller sample size.

Part of it is a matter of taste, and part of it is how the brewer brews it. Some do brew a beer with cellaring in mind. Some don't. *shrug* To say "never age beers" is ridiculous, and especially coming from a brewer whose brewery recently released a beer that has been sitting at their brewery for a year. They are in essence saying "Buy our old beer that is no good!"
 
Re: EMERGENCY - I'm drinking and the old drinking thread is closed!

If you’re brewing with cellaring I’m mind, it mean you are imparting flaws hat need to be corrected. Brew a better beer.

When I’ve done verticals I find anything past a year old tastes like cardboard and old coffee grounds. Those flavors are far more pronounced compared to the awesome coffee, fruit, and barrel aromas and flavors that are lost after even six months.

I’m not saying never. all I’m saying is people are aging them too long. 2-3 months tops 99% of beers. 1 year for 100%. And at that point, it’s not aging, it’s just laziness.
 
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