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Long Aging of Crystal and Dark Malt Beers

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old faithful
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Long Aging of Crystal and Dark Malt Beers

Post by old faithful »

In Michael Combrune's 1760's English brewing text he stresses on numerous occasions the importance of aging what he calls brown beers. These were beers made from medium-roasted malts. In his day there were malts kilned from almost white ("slack-dried") to jet black. Combrune seemed to consider that pale malts (yellow tending to amber in colour) did not need aging for this reason alone. I.e., they might be long-aged for other reasons (mainly if it was intended to keep them for many months and into a warm climate) but not because of their degree of kilning. But with brown or darker malts Combrune stresses the importance of aging to mellow the taste. I am trying to figure out why he felt that way. Maybe the dark malts were kilned over wood (although he never states this) and the smoky taste would subside with long aging. He states, in what sounds like an alchemy discussion, that since dark malts contain less oxygen than pale malts (this being "expelled" by "fire"), long aging permits oxygen to get back in and mellow the taste. Not seemingly a satisfactory explanation..

Yet, in reading recently also Roger Protz' book on how Imperial Stout was made into the 1970's by Courage (formerly Barclay) in London, I find an echo of this old idea of long-aging brown beers. Protz says Courage aged the beer for one year in oak before bottling it. When production was relocated to Yorkshire the 1 year's cask aging was stopped and it was up to the consumer to lay it away, and of course this beer was expected anyway to mature for some years in bottle.

That practice of aging for a year in wood is exactly what Combrune was talking about. He gives a table in which ideal aging periods for dark beers are specified and a year is about right in fact sometimes he specifies a longer keeping before broaching.

My question is:

i) has any home (or professional) brewer found that aging benefits dark beers, porters and stouts in particular?

ii) if so, why is that? I realise all beers benefit from a short maturation but is there anything about dark beers that makes the process more desireable and if so what is it?

Gary

PRMason
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Post by PRMason »

Gravity palys a major role in the aging process here. Dark beers will on average age better. The portion of highly kilned malts drops the ph in the beer, so the beer "smooths out" over time, much like red wines. A beer with 6% abv or more will also age better. In fact the higher the alcohol, the longer it should sit in order to allow the disparate lelments to "knit together". I call this the Port effect. Young vintage port is (in my opinion) rather nasty stuff. The alcohol, sugar, acids, and fruit are still discernable as separate entities. Given time and some reductive aging in the bottle, these diverse elements sing as one and a great beverage is created. Aging a low alcohol dark mild will do you no good though. The lack of "stuffing" and the low hopping rate will conspire to age it too quickly.
I would love to cellar the Imperial stout myself and release only after two years in bottle (at least). The financial impact of that, and the space constraints i have prevents it. :cry:

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Derek
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Post by Derek »

I'd be happy to cellar some imperial stout! Seriously! If you could get some spent/used homebrew-sized (5-10 Ga) barrels at a decent price, there might be a small market. Any contacts in the Whiskey or Wine business?

I'm sure you could find some Ferment-on-Premises spots that would do it as well... with keg-sized barrels. (C'est What?)

Back to the question, dark malts are bitter. Personally, I don't enjoy the overly-roasty character of some (much like starbucks coffee). The oak smooths out this bitterness... just like it does with wine. Try an oaked & unoaked chardonnay back-to-back... you can imagine what it would do for your beer.

I've had an oak-aged Yeti that was AWESOME. Unfortunately I haven't tried the regular Yeti.

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