Reader Question: Commercial Sources For Aged Beer?
By jason on Sep 15, 2008 in Messages to Readers
Hello folks! I’d like to share a little email exchange I had with Brew Basement reader Mark the other day. Maybe one of you can help him out!
Hi Mark, I’m glad you like the site.There’s not a whole heck of a lot out there commercially as far as aged beers go. Your best bet for a wide variety of brews is to check out the auctions on a site like liquidsolutions.biz, which will periodically auction off different lots of vintage beers. You could also check out ebay, where you can often find aged beers being sold off in the “collectible bottle” category of the site.
You also might be able find a supply of aged beers in some specialty beer shops. I’ve personally purchased aged verisons of George Gale’s Prize Old Ale and LeCoq’s Imperial Extra Double Stout at my local brew store, but they had aged horribly (Check out my review for the LeCoq). I’ve also purchased a three-year old Thomas Hardy in that way, but haven’t tried it yet. I have heard of stores selling more reliable vintage beers, but have not bought any personally. From what I understand, this practice is quite common with beer stores in Europe. I have no idea if you could buy bottles mail ordered to you from there, though.
The last thing to keep your eyes open for is special releases from the breweries themselves. I’ve seen several aged stouts release directly from the brewery over the past year, I believe Alesmith in San Diego does this pretty regularly. Again, whether or not you could get those releases mail ordered to you is another thing entirely.
Just remember that when you do buy an aged beer, there’s no real way for you to know the conditions it was cellared under over the years. You’re going to be putting a lot of trust in the other person!
Hope that helps.
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the reply. Perhaps others know of some sources. You’re right though that one runs the risk that the beer was simply sitting on someones shelf for years, without proper cellaring. Patience is a virtue in this hobby. I did find John’s Grocery (www.johnsgrocery.com), which do have some of the usuals. I might evaluate a few of these.
Well, keep up the posts, and I’ll be sure to sign up to your feeds.
Cheers,
Mark
After thinking about it a bit more, I’m pretty confident that there’ll be some other sources out there. How about it people, can anyone help Mark out?
Jason
“I believe Alesmith in San Diego does this pretty regularly”
Next Friday actually.
matt | Sep 15, 2008 | Reply
I know I’ve seen beers of various vintages being sold online (besides eBay of course).
I would like to add that the fun in starting a collection is aging it yourself. Sure, you can’t just crack open an aged beer whenever you want, but in a few years, you can. Find some friends, split some big orders and you’ll be on the road to aging beer.
The other problem to buying online besides the unknown conditions is the price. You’d be paying sometimes double or triple what you’d pay for it fresh in the store. You also never know what you might find in the store. For instance, my local beer store has some bottles of V-Saison that was bottled in 2006 (found it past its prime even though Victory says it should be good for 5 years, but it’s there).
Jim | Sep 15, 2008 | Reply
There is a ton of great vintage beer to be found on ebay for some damn good prices. User birkonian in the UK sells a whole range of very old Thomas Hardys, and also some Courage RIS, another strong ager. The other stuff you just have to look around for. My recent acquisitions include 4 different British Silver Jubilee ales (from 1977), Westmalle Dubbel and Tripel 1979, Stille Nacht 1989 and Oerbier 1992, and I didn’t pay over $20 for a single bottle after shipping. Most were around $15. You may not like beer quite that old, it’s certainly a matter of taste. I love it.
Also, keep an eye out for vintage beer in your store. 97-2000 JW Lees Harvest Ale is a pretty common sight. Old Stock Ale 2006 is still everywhere, and I’ve seen older vintages as well. Sam Adams Triplebock (which may or may not be to your taste) is still seeing distribution from its 1997 bottling. Vapeur has also sent over 1995 and 1996 bottlings of Saison de Pipaix and Vapeur en Folie, respectively. Also, many lambics have been sitting around years and will be better than ever.
One of my favorite ways to find older beer is to hit up junky little beer shops that no one else goes to. You can usually find some random barleywines or imperial stouts that have been sitting there for ages (or, *shudder*, pale ales). Things I’ve found over the years from that include 96 Stille Nacht, 2002 Guinness FES, Newport Storm 02 and 03, Dulle Teve 2002, 2003 Old Stock.
Point being, there are tons of ways to find vintage beer, you just need to know where to look. Good luck!
(PS: don’t bother with the vintage auctions on Liquid Solutions. They are far too expensive).
Andy Dremeaux | Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
Older Unibroue Anniversary beers are also fairly common (we are on 17 now, so 16, 15, Edition 2005, Edition 2004, 11, 10 are the ones to look out for — and no, the numbering doesn’t make any sense).
Andy Dremeaux | Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
I was checking out the online listings for Liquor Max Warehouse, and saw they occasionally have fridge-aged brews for sale. Keep an eye out!
http://www.liquormax.net/beer-inventory-price-list-i-8.html?osCsid=7a176db20cf825db25f0c1e48a748d14
jason | Sep 24, 2008 | Reply
Don’t forget Fuller’s Vintage Ale:
http://www.fullers-ales.com/vintage_ale.php
I can still purchase the 2004 and 2005 vintages in many of the Chicago-area liquor stores.
Mark Zgarrick | Oct 28, 2008 | Reply