Hello everyone!

I’ve just recently come across a couple of interesting discussions on the whole topic of how you should store your cellared beers. First off, a few Brew Basement readers gave some insightful comments on my recent update to my little beer cellaring experiment (I certainly learned a thing or two from reading them). A little while after that, I noticed this recent posting on the BeerAdvocate.com Cellaring/Aging Beer forum. With all this new information floating around, joining already established articles out there summing up the conventional wisdom on the topic (the most popular of which is also over at BeerAdvocate.com), I thought I’d take a little time to write a little summary of the current thoughts that have been floated out about the subject.

Let’s start with the arguments for aging your beers while standing up …

• Oxidation - Laying a beer on it’s side will increase the surface area of beer that is exposed to air in the headspace. Conventional thinking has considered this a bad thing. Increasing the surface area of beer exposed to air will increase the rate of oxidative staling reactions - obviously a bad thing.
• Cork Issues - You don’t need to have the cork in contact with beer in order to keep it moist. Drying out shouldn’t be an issue with corks, as the humidity levels inside a beer bottle should keep the cork damp enough. In addition, natural corks can impart mostly unwanted flavors into your brew when they are exposed directly to beer for long periods of time.
• Yeast Rings - When you lay a beer on it’s side, the yeast is going to settle over a much wider area rather then staying nice and compact at the bottom of the bottle. This has an impact when you finally go to drink the beer - it’ll be much harder to keep yeast out of your glass.
• Brewer Recommendations - According to the Beer Advocate guys, who have certainly talked to a heck of a lot more brewers then I have, say that almost everybody in the business recommends standing their beers up to store them.

… and here’s the case for aging your beers laying down.

• Oxidation (again!) - Increasing the area of beer exposed to headspace is actually a good thing, as active yeast (in bottle conditioned brews, that is) will gobble up any free oxygen during the course of their normal respiration. This leads to increased carbonation levels and decreases in oxidative staling reactions in the long run.
• The Barrier Effect - Corks aren’t perfect. Over the long run, carbon dioxide and various aroma molecules can leach out of the bottle, slowly degrading your brew. Liquid forms a much better barrier to this effect, and keeps your beer fresher as a result. Champagne is stored on it’s side with little worry about CO2 leaking out.
• Yeast Rings - Are they really that bad? If you standing your beer up a little while before you drink it should minimize the amount of yeast getting into your glass.
• Cork Flavors - A few die hards will contend that a little corky flavor can add a bit of complexity to your beer.
• Brewer Recommendations - There are a certain contingent of folks (mostly from Belgium, it seems) that swear by laying their beers down - especially lambics and gueuzes.

Just looking at the results of my last experiment, the only item on the list that could explain the increased carbonation levels in the bottle laying down (besides some screwy variance in the two bottles I tested) would be The Barrier Effect. I also think I’ll have to add some capped brews and possibly a second batch of corked beers to this experiment. Anybody have any suggestions to what beers I should experiment with?

Jason

jason@brewbasement.com

www.brewbasement.com