Hello fellow beer fanatics!

I seem to be getting more and more mail lately and please trust me, I’m trying hard to answer everyone somewhat timely (unfortunately I’ve been terrible about responding to comments on the site - I promise to get better there). I have just one request for you all - please keep those emails coming! I really love hearing from everyone, so if you have a question about beer cellaring or just want to say hi, send off and email to jason@brewbasement.com! I promise you’ll get an answer. You might even get to see your email on the site!

Now on to some recent emails!

Hi Jason,

Just discovered your site today. Great work and thanks for all the interesting reads. I’ve looked around a little online about cellaring and it seems that cellaring in a fridge is not the best idea. However, in our current living situation, we don’t have much choice, so I wanted to get your opinion.

We live on the third floor of an apartment building and don’t have access to a basement of any sorts. The only real storage area in our flat are these spaces behind the walls. It is a dark space, but the temperature is not controlled. While it doesn’t get extremely hot here (in Southern England), the building’s outer walls are not insulated, so the area we’ve been using as for beer storage is getting a bit muggy as we’re approaching the summer. As far as what we’re cellaring, it’s exclusively Belgians and we only have one corked bottle (oude gueze). We will only be living in this flat for another 18 months and after that we’ll be moving overseas so we’re only keeping our beer around until we move. We tend to purchase our Belgian beers by the case since we have to drive over an hour to a shop to find the beers, so while we’re essentially storing it, with the intention of consuming the beer before we move. But, some of the beer is quite nice (such as Westvletern 12), so we’d like to keep it in good condition until the right moment comes for opening it.

With all those details in mind, do you think it would be a ok for us to purchase a small fridge and store our beer in there? If so, would 55F be a good storing temperature? And what bout the lack of humidity problem with fridges, is there anyway to get around that problem?

Thanks for your help,
Elena

Hi Elena, thanks for reading! I’m glad you’re enjoying the site. Sounds like you’ve got a lot of great Belgians - I’m definitely jealous!

Given your 18-month time frame, I’m not sure I would worry TOO much about the humidity, especially since you only have one corked bottle to worry about. The seals around the caps of your bottles can also dry out over time, but I wouldn’t be overly concerned with the drying out given the short period of time you’ll be cellaring them.

55F is a great temp for cellaring, cold enough to slow down some of the staling reactions that occur in beer, but still warm enough for the conditioning yeast to be active. It’s the temp I shoot for in my cellar.

I was researching beer aging and I found your blog which is awesome. I was hoping to get your opinion. I bought 5 Anderson Valley 20th Anniversary Imperial IPAs about a month ago with the hopes of aging them. However, with further research I’m not sure it’s really that great of an idea because is may be too light and have too much hops to be a good aging candidate. Have you had this beer? Do you have any advice?

-Justin

Hi Justin, thanks for checking out my site!

I haven’t had the pleasure of having this one yet, unfortunately. Just going by what you and others on the Internet are saying about this beer (I checked out Beer Advocate’s reviews to familiarize myself), it doesn’t sound like the best candidate for cellaring. Some IPA’s can work in the cellar, but they tend to have a big malt base which will come forward over time as the hops start to fade.

That being said, I would probably throw one bottle of this in the cellar and then drink the rest. Pop it out in a year or two and see what happens, you never know with this hobby!

Thanks again for reading.

Jason
jason@brewbasement.com

www.brewbasement.com