Aging Beers -- I'm REALLY Confused Right Now

Not sure where I got it but I have a brew calendar. In a nutshell it’s 2 beers a month, one session and one strong. For example May is a kolsch for summer and scotch ale for fall. I made some changes to it but it is a nice reminder to get a schedule for your brewing. I always seem to get stuck rushing beers for the ideal season, you know, brewing pumpkin ale in late sept, etc. P

[quote=“zwiller”]Easy… Filter it and pasteurize it. Instant beer-sectomy.

Best advice I was ever given to keep me from drinking beer too young was to BREW MORE BEER. Wish I could practice it more often…[/quote]

+1 I try to brew every weekend, but sometimes the “Boss” stands in the way… something about bills, mortgage, that kind of thing.

This thread has somewhat grew into a “brew more” match. That wasn’t really what I was getting at. What I was getting at where:

  1. How well a hoppy beer has aged – it hit a nice peak at three months
  2. How well this beer aged at a moderately high room temp for more than a month

Both of which go against my previous notions of when to drink a hoppy beer. I always thought they were best once carbonated and clear.

So at this point, I’ll still drink a lot of my beer fresh, but I’m not so afraid to age them at room temp for a while – I can only fit so much in my beer fridge (5 kegs) and this fact has slowed down my brewing a bit recently. Now I no longer fear aging some of it out of the fridge.

alanzo, I think with hoppy beers that come out too bitter/harsh, the aging process can help them mellow into something great. For others that have a nice, smooth hop character right away, they might lose a bit of their edge via the aging process. That’s my reading on it.

I don’t know if you taste your hydro samples when racking to secondary or bottling bucket, but with the pales and IPAs I’ve made, I’m almost always worried that it’s going to be undrinkably bitter. But, within 1 - 3 weeks in bottles, they’re usually more or less right on the money. For something super hoppy, I can imagine it taking longer for everything to settle in.

Also, I don’t put anything in the fridge until I’m ready to drink it, so everything is continually aging at room temps. Not sure if this is OK, but it’s worked for me so far!

One of the things i like to do for IPAs to take advantage of this info is to age the beer before I dry hop it. I’ll let it sit for 4-6 weeks after brewing, then dose it with dry hops (2-4 oz) and let that infuse into the beer for a week or two before putting it on tap. All the advantages of a properly conditioned beer plus the freshness!!

^^this^^

Alanzo, you may be experiencing the effect of yeast dropping out, which need not necessarily take 3 months. Yeast bind to hop material, so when the yeast finally floccs out the beer is going to taste less bitter, harsh, grassy, whatever. You also have the knockon effects of the hop volatiles degrading and hop bitterness decreasing, which result in less flavor and aroma than were originally there but may be in better balance in the scope of the beer. I think McDole mentioned this beer is best after 6-8 weeks when he was talking about brewing at RR for the first time, but my memory is a little fuzzy here.

But depending on yeast strain, recipe, and ingredients, more time can be detrimental. Commercially you have to look just as far as Pliney, which Vinnie C. wants drunk as fresh as possible, and the beer certainly does not suffer from being too young. Filtering or using finings like gelatin can cut weeks off the aging process. You ever taste the dregs at the bottom of the keg or bottle? It’s nasty, and when it’s not floating in the beer the beer is better for it.

As for aging at room temp, I’ve started to notice degradation in lagers (presumably beers with the easiest to detect oxidation) after about 6 months of room temp storage, +/- 2 months. YMMV depending on process and style, but it seems you have plenty of time before things start to head south IME.

I think ickyfoot is on the right track. Beers that are a bit rough will benefit from some aging, but I think beers that are made well don’t need it and will start to decline from aging. As noted, commercial brewers are not aging their beers because they have their processes dialed in. If a homebrewer can dial his processes in he can enjoy his product sooner since he does not need to age flaws out. I think dialing in pH would help many a homebrewer with rough IPA’s, not aging. Check out Kai’s research on how pH affects hop utilization for more info.

Heck yeah!!! Also, if you’ve been on the fence about getting into kegging, it’s great way to learn about aging first hand. Just pull a splash of brew every week or 10 days and you’ll learn first hand what aging does even if there is no accurate technical explanation. I guarantee you’ll become much more patient when you see the results of a month or more at fridge temp.

I never really thought of it like that! Maybe I’ll try finings at some point after all.

^^this^^

Alanzo, you may be experiencing the effect of yeast dropping out, which need not necessarily take 3 months. Yeast bind to hop material, so when the yeast finally floccs out the beer is going to taste less bitter, harsh, grassy, whatever. You also have the knockon effects of the hop volatiles degrading and hop bitterness decreasing, which result in less flavor and aroma than were originally there but may be in better balance in the scope of the beer. I think McDole mentioned this beer is best after 6-8 weeks when he was talking about brewing at RR for the first time, but my memory is a little fuzzy here.

But depending on yeast strain, recipe, and ingredients, more time can be detrimental. Commercially you have to look just as far as Pliney, which Vinnie C. wants drunk as fresh as possible, and the beer certainly does not suffer from being too young. Filtering or using finings like gelatin can cut weeks off the aging process. You ever taste the dregs at the bottom of the keg or bottle? It’s nasty, and when it’s not floating in the beer the beer is better for it.

As for aging at room temp, I’ve started to notice degradation in lagers (presumably beers with the easiest to detect oxidation) after about 6 months of room temp storage, +/- 2 months. YMMV depending on process and style, but it seems you have plenty of time before things start to head south IME.[/quote]

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing that.

Heck yeah!!! Also, if you’ve been on the fence about getting into kegging, it’s great way to learn about aging first hand. Just pull a splash of brew every week or 10 days and you’ll learn first hand what aging does even if there is no accurate technical explanation. I guarantee you’ll become much more patient when you see the results of a month or more at fridge temp.[/quote]

I agree with this, I’m always pulling a few ounces of beer here and there as they age just to see how they taste, amazing the transformation many go through, and then when it hits the sweet spot I open the flood gates

Aging does more than just clear the beer. Fitering would do little to change the flavor, and is certainly no substitute for aging. I don’t claim to know why, it just is. It’s one of the wonderful mysteries of the universe!!!

I didn’t claim that filtering is a substitute for aging. But the physical settling of fines can be the longest part of the aging process, especially with certain yeasts. Fining/filtering will speed this up. And the bitterness reduction can be dramatic.

I should be clear, I’m not advocating drinking beer right out of the fermenter (unless it’s a Hefeweizen, of course!) Even with finings it still takes a week or so to get the beer really clear and carb, and that’s after ~2 weeks in the fermenter. So I’m never drinking anything that’s less than 3 weeks old. Some beers get better with age, some don’t.

I should add, unhealthy fermentation can make the aging period longer than necessary. Unhealthy yeast will take a long time to clean up acetyldehyde and diacetyl. High fermentation temps can produce more fusel alchols which need time to esterify and make the beer taste less harsh. If you are pitching the proper amount of healthy yeast and controlling fermentation temperatures, this is not going to be a problem.