My Top Ten Beer Cellaring Tips Of The Year (Part 2)
By jason on Dec 21, 2007 in Featured, Recommendations
Here’s the second half of my best beer cellaring tips of the year.
6. Do everything you can to minimize temp swings when dealing with live yeast - When cellaring a bottle-conditioned beer where the yeast are still active, do everything you can to minimize sudden changes in temperature. Failing to do so may send your little yeast buddies to an early demise (also known as autolysis). So please don’t pull those bottles in and out of the fridge repeatedly!
7. Warmer temperature storage can lead to solvent flavors in your beer - A molecule called Furfuryl Ethyl Ether (or FEE for short) lends a solvent or green-apple flavor to your beer. It can be OK in smaller amounts, but can quickly overwhelm other flavors as it builds up. The reaction that causes this molecule is very temperature dependent, so watch out for this taste in your beer if you happen to be cellaring at warmer temperatures.
8. When a beer’s flavor peaks, keep it as cold as possible - With a large number of the aging chemical reactions in beer being more active at higher temperatures, it makes sense to chill those aging beers down when they’re at or near their peak. You’ll give yourself a longer period of time to enjoy them while they’re at their best!
9. Watch out for dead yeast destroying fruity flavors - Another result of the process of autolysis is the release of enzymes called esterases into your beer. These esterases will break up the molecules that cause fruit flavors in your beer, and are a big reason why fruity flavors diminish over time in your beer.
10. Don’t rely on the ethanol in your beer to deter micro-organism development - As I showed in my series on why strong beers age well, the ethanol levels present in beer are not high enough to have an effect on most micro-organism growth. Other compounds in beer may have a protective effect, but ethanol is not one of them.
Jason
jason@brewbasement.com
http://www.brewbasement.com
Hello Jason, Just stumbled on your web site whilst supping my annual New Years eve treat of a bottle of 1997 Prize Old Ale, I see you are resisiting tasting yours, luckily for me I have most of a case left and I think they will carry on improving, so you do not need to worry that yours are on the decline yet. Just for your information mine have been stored on their side, which I tend to favour with corked bottles, in a reasonably even cellar.
Enjoyed a wonderful bottle of 1993 Russian imperial Stout at Christmas, the last year they were made sadly before Courage decide to stop brewing it…fortunately I had a friend who worked for Courage at the time who was able to get a few of the very last cases : )
Happy New Year
Carey
carey | Dec 31, 2007 | Reply