Cellaring and Vintage beer discussion

Stakem

Tômester
Love it or hate it. Do it on purpose or by accident, old beer is a thing. Some swear by it and others despise it. Im down with the oxidationists.

I admittedly enjoy old, properly cellared beer more than a person probably should. Some of my all time favorite beers I think are borderline trash until they have time to come into their own.

Thomas Hardy
JW Lee
old stock
Bigfoot
WWS
fantomes
de dolle
lambic
berliners
misc barleywines, old ales, strong ales, imperial stouts and wilds are all typical to be discussed here. Have you found any outliers or other atypical cellaring gems/vintages?

What are your favorites, what have you held on to too long or not long enough? Is there anything you buy regularly and purposely dont drink for X amount of time or have any running verticals/horizontals of?

I wanna hear/see it all.
 
Love it or hate it. Do it on purpose or by accident, old beer is a thing. Some swear by it and others despise it. Im down with the oxidationists.

I admittedly enjoy old, properly cellared beer more than a person probably should. Some of my all time favorite beers I think are borderline trash until they have time to come into their own.

Thomas Hardy
JW Lee
old stock
Bigfoot
WWS
fantomes
de dolle
lambic
berliners
misc barleywines, old ales, strong ales, imperial stouts and wilds are all typical to be discussed here. Have you found any outliers or other atypical cellaring gems/vintages?

What are your favorites, what have you held on to too long or not long enough? Is there anything you buy regularly and purposely dont drink for X amount of time or have any running verticals/horizontals of?

I wanna hear/see it all.

Old JW Lees (not cask variants) is probably my favorite (and also what I've had the most of). Sometimes it's very heavy on the yam notes, but when it's good, it's really good.

Haven't had much luck with the Hardy's that I've opened, but I'd chalk that up to storage conditions (and to the odds on 30-year-old bottles not being great generally).

Oldest beer I've had is the 1902 Kings Ale. Far from good, but still better than I would have expected from a then-116 year old beer.

109
 
Love it or hate it. Do it on purpose or by accident, old beer is a thing. Some swear by it and others despise it. Im down with the oxidationists.

I admittedly enjoy old, properly cellared beer more than a person probably should. Some of my all time favorite beers I think are borderline trash until they have time to come into their own.

Thomas Hardy
JW Lee
old stock
Bigfoot
WWS
fantomes
de dolle
lambic
berliners
misc barleywines, old ales, strong ales, imperial stouts and wilds are all typical to be discussed here. Have you found any outliers or other atypical cellaring gems/vintages?

What are your favorites, what have you held on to too long or not long enough? Is there anything you buy regularly and purposely dont drink for X amount of time or have any running verticals/horizontals of?

I wanna hear/see it all.

De dolle is my favorite to age.

I have a bunch of stille nacht and oerbier reserva back a few years.

Claaaaaaaark13 opened a 96 stille nacht a few years ago that blew me away.

Had the 05 reserva at a bar in GA.

A very kind soul hooked me up with this 85 stille nacht that I Hope is going to be not terrible when I get up the nerve to drink something I’ll never have again.
9A749E7A-8270-40E8-A484-5636D4752340.jpeg
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318C8E41-B4C7-4410-A5A8-577372331CBD.jpeg
 
De dolle is my favorite to age.

I have a bunch of stille nacht and oerbier reserva back a few years.

Claaaaaaaark13 opened a 96 stille nacht a few years ago that blew me away.

Had the 05 reserva at a bar in GA.

A very kind soul hooked me up with this 85 stille nacht that I Hope is going to be not terrible when I get up the nerve to drink something I’ll never have again.
9A749E7A-8270-40E8-A484-5636D4752340.jpeg
666B0263-3FF2-4473-9B37-6A4698500F4B.jpeg
318C8E41-B4C7-4410-A5A8-577372331CBD.jpeg

I drank a speciaal brouwsel 20 (the shiny silver label one from circa 2001?) around this time a couple years back that was quite interesting. Probably the most peculiar de dolle thing ive drank that didnt have acetone or acetobacter in it.

Pretty sure I still have a bottle left, along with some other random ones. I never bothered to tuck away any still nacht and I kinda regret that now. Well, save for the last time they released still nacht reserva, i got a couple of them.
 
I’m going to have some things to add to this after next weekend. Lineup includes:

Bass Kings Ale (1908)
Bass Princes Ale (1940s)
Thomas Hardy (1983, 1996, 1997, 1998)
Crianza
Bottleworks X
Twisted Spoke
B1 CBS
2007 BA Speedway
B1 imperial stout trooper
2008 perfect storm
Abacus

and a bunch more.
 
De dolle is my favorite to age.

I have a bunch of stille nacht and oerbier reserva back a few years.

Claaaaaaaark13 opened a 96 stille nacht a few years ago that blew me away.

Had the 05 reserva at a bar in GA.

A very kind soul hooked me up with this 85 stille nacht that I Hope is going to be not terrible when I get up the nerve to drink something I’ll never have again.

Toronado in San Francisco opened a couple bottles of 2000 SN Reserva a few weeks ago. People were walking right by it not even knowing what it was. It was such a treat to try and still held up pretty well. I had 2 pours. Don't imagine I'll ever have that again.
 
Toronado in San Francisco opened a couple bottles of 2000 SN Reserva a few weeks ago. People were walking right by it not even knowing what it was. It was such a treat to try and still held up pretty well. I had 2 pours. Don't imagine I'll ever have that again.
It was so stupidly good. I haven't ever been a huge fan of the newer SNRs but dear god was that 2000 amazing. Perhaps my palate has just matured, it's been a while since I've otherwise had one.
 
I was at Belmont Station a couple years ago, and they had a bunch of vintages of Gale's Prize Old Ale for like $5-6 a bottle. I bought '98-'05 & took one or two to a share every once in a while. They were all varying degrees of awful, but sometimes it's fun to drink a beer that's legally old enough to drink itself.
 
It was so stupidly good. I haven't ever been a huge fan of the newer SNRs but dear god was that 2000 amazing. Perhaps my palate has just matured, it's been a while since I've otherwise had one.

I went back for the 2nd pour thinking the 1st might have been influenced by the gravity of the experience but sure enough it really was that good. Makes me wonder what other gems are lurking in their cellar.
 
I’m all for a Stakem Things I Hunted, Drunk, Foraged and All Other Shenanigans Appreciation Thread

And this is how many people would subscribe:
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Minus one or 2 who accidentally hit like as they were scrolling past your comment.

Its not even 8 am and already I had to relocate a 6ft black snake and break up a death match fight between 2 alpha male quails. I gotta release or eat some today because them trying to murder each other for fucking rights to the girls has the females distraught and not laying eggs.

Thanks for the tag/reminder of this thread. I forget to cross post in all valid areas but those who participated in the DDT/casual lambicers already know I drank a 10 year old geuze out of a flower vase on thursday.
 
I’m going to have some things to add to this after next weekend. Lineup includes:

Bass Kings Ale (1908)
Bass Princes Ale (1940s)
Thomas Hardy (1983, 1996, 1997, 1998)
Crianza
Bottleworks X
Twisted Spoke
B1 CBS
2007 BA Speedway
B1 imperial stout trooper
2008 perfect storm
Abacus

and a bunch more.
Give the first pour off the old Bass to some unsuspecting hungover asshole. It will taste like old cork.
 
I’m going to have some things to add to this after next weekend. Lineup includes:

Bass Kings Ale (1908)
Bass Princes Ale (1940s)
Thomas Hardy (1983, 1996, 1997, 1998)
Crianza
Bottleworks X
Twisted Spoke
B1 CBS
2007 BA Speedway
B1 imperial stout trooper
2008 perfect storm
Abacus

and a bunch more.

Killer lineup. Have had many of those at different times, but all at one share, that's awesome.

Isn't the Princes Ale 1929?
 
Love JW Lee's that is 10+ years old
I prefer Anna with 2-3 years on it, but opened a 5 1/2 yr old w/ primebeer that was great.
BCBS 2012 is peak quality rn
BCBBW 2013 is King Henry Jr, so good
Third Coast w/ 5 years is mellow & nice

I've been drinking down the cellar the past couple years. But, I used to keep various vintages of Orval, Stille Nacht, Oerbier, Backwoods Bastard, Old Rasputin, Old Stock, KBS etc. While, it is certainly fun to compare vintages as well as buy 6+ bottles of the same beer & open 1 every 1-2 years; I am also happy atm w/ more space in the basement to store other crap. As well as not having too many beers sitting there, going well past their prime & not being enjoyed.
 
I didn't take any pictures, but I opened a 1991 JW Lees last night, which was just OK. It was pretty flat, had none of the delightful oxidation, but also wasn't a terrible mess. It was honestly kind of disappointing to not get a delightful beer or a train wreck.
 
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