Cellaring Beer

[skaghevn]

I've had a few beers cellaring away for a while now, and recently have just started to harvest the fruits of my labour (namely, resisting temptation). I did make a rookie mistake -- not noting when every bottle was purchased -- but have found it not to impede upon my enjoyment of a good brew. I do have a few questions though, and was hoping someone here would be able to help me out.

(1) I have some 750ml bottles of Chimay Grande Réserve (Blue) & Première (Red), and assume they were purchased within the last 5 years or so; does anyone when these bottles - best before dates 2006 & 2007, respectively - would have been released?

(2) Has anyone tried either of the McAuslan 1999 or 2000 Vintage Ales recently? I would imagine that they are ready for drinking now, but as I only have a couple of bottles of each on hand, I'm not anxious to drink them before their prime.

(3) Is the recent issue of Rogue Imperial Stout best consumed now, or a year from now? I'm a wee confused by the 2003 bottling date and "best aged one year" message. I do intend to cellar some of this for a couple of years; any suggestions as to how long I should let 'em sit? Ditto for the Old Crustacean; did the '97 served at the Beer Bistro recently suggest that it still had room to age?

(4) I picked up a few Unibroue beers this spring for BBQ's, and never got around to consuming them. Beers (using corks) that I want to cellar always get laid horizontally, but since I hadn't planned on saving these, they've been vertical since spring. Would the corks be too dry to make worthy additions to the cellar?

(5) Finally, does anyone have an idea how to date pre-date-coded Unibroue Fin Du Monde's, Maudite's, or Quel-que Chose bottlings? I'm not expecting much from the Quel-que Chose (instinct says I should've consumed it within a year of purchase), but did recently have the pleasure of enjoying what I suspect was a '98 Fin (had the 1997 Platinum Medal award on the label), and would like to try to be able to make reasonably accurate notes on it. Exactly when did Unibroue start date coding their bottles?

Any help would be appreciated; hope you can forgive the long post.

Cheers, Rob

[JerCraigs]

McAuslan 99 and 00 are both quite nice now. My opinion would be to drink them now or soonish but they could last a while longer, whether or not they improve... I dunno.

The Rogue Impy I had was a few years old and was quite nice.
Old Curstacean I would say don't bother until its at least two years old. The 97 at Beer Bistro was quite nice.

I have preferred the vintage Quelque Chose to the fresh stuff, but then it may depend WHICH vintage you get. I am not sure. See my ratings ratebeer.com for more details on my personal opinions.

[esprit]

Chimay Grande Reserve (Blue Cap) generally put a 5 year best before date on their labels. Not sure about Premere although if you check their bottles today that should tell as the product is fresh and brewed within the last 6 months.

[PierreBiere]

Check out these previous posts:

http://www.bartowel.com/board/viewtopic ... light=cork
http://www.bartowel.com/board/viewtopic ... light=cork

[Wheatsheaf]

1) The 1999 and 2000 McAuslan Vintage Ales should be ready to drink right now. I had a bottle of the 2001 recently and it was absolutely lovely.

2) If you have more than one bottle of Rogue IS, drink one now, cellar the rest, and open another bottle every six months or so to see how it's evolving. It'll probably do extremely well over the next few years. It's comparing apples to oranges, but the seven-year-old bottle of Old Crusty at Beer Bistro still had years left on the clock.

3) Apart from the current bottles of Quelque Chose, Terrible, and Fringante, I think it's very hard to date Unibroue beers. I don't understand the code that they stamp on the corks. New bottles have "2004" printed on the necks. At some point in the last few years, Unibroue switched to 500ml bottles for Quelque Chose; any 750ml bottles are probably from the late 90s. Like a lot of cherry beers, Quelque Chose seems almost immortal, so don't worry about not having consumed it while it was fresh. Whatever the age of your bottles, they're still going to be just fine.

4) The horizontal vs. vertical storage debate is still raging. My vote's for vertical, so I wouldn't worry about any bottles that you unintentionally stored upright. I included a link to a story on Ratebeer in one of the previous Bar Towel threads that PierreBiere posted. It's still a great read, so check it out at http://www.ratebeer.com/Story.asp?StoryID=279 if you're interested.

At the end of the day, I think there's only one thing to remember when cellaring beer: Relax! Darkness and relatively constant temperature are about the only variables that really matter, so don't worry too much about the other things.

[joey_capps]

I have preferred the vintage Quelque Chose to the fresh stuff, but then it may depend WHICH vintage you get. I am not sure. See my ratings ratebeer.com for more details on my personal opinions.

I belive the recipe for Quelque Chose was changed relatively recently. That could explain why you prefer the vintage stuff.

[Wheatsheaf]

Quelque Chose likely changed when Unibroue made the switch from 750ml to 500ml bottles--which is more than a few years ago (does anyone know exactly when?). I have only my memory to go on, but the first bottles I had seemed to have an intensity that the newer ones are slightly lacking. It's still top-notch, just a little different. Unless a new batch has been released in the last few months, though, the question is actually about vintage stuff vs. really vintage stuff. To the best of my knowledge, the newest edition that you can buy was brewed on 08/08/2002--over two years ago.

[pootz]

I have a 2 year old bottle of Rogue Imp that I intend to enjoy at Xmas with some oysters...Jeremy what did the aging do to it...mellow the hops or hide the alcohol better?