Vintage beer
This might be a stretch, but I read this article last night, and it got me thinking. Several years ago a home-brewing genius brought a dusty old bottle up from his cellar, gently popped the cork (that’s right, I wrote cork) and poured a dark nectar into a strangely shaped glass. It was my first foray into cellared beer, and I wasn’t prepared for what I tasted.
First, when he popped the cork, it was like a half-liter champagne bottle going off in his hand. And second, when I tasted the beer I realized an entirely new experience.
A zillion tiny bubbles erupted through my mouth followed by the subtle taste of raspberry, a taste you might find in a bottle of Chambord.
I didn’t know you could do this with beer.
Dozens of home brews later, I experimented with my own cellar beer. I brewed a dry-hopped imperial stout that came out about eight percent and was as black as midnight. I drank most of it during the fall after the summer I brewed it, but when I moved several years later I found two bottles tucked away in the back of my improvised cellar.
I called my home-brewing buddy and set out for his place and a couple of funny-shaped glasses. We popped the cork, which didn’t quite go off like champagne and poured the beer. It tasted incredible, as if all the flavor potential in the beer had swirled together for just such a time.
I don’t cellar much beer, though I’ve thought about it from time to time. Beer, for me, has always been about what’s new for each season and the variations from season to season. I like diversity. But this article got me thinking about long-term diversity, about letting the beer age and tasting it all along its path to perfection.
What do you think about drinking aged beer? What about beer snobs who add too much pretentiousness to a subject that never had it and doesn’t need it? These are just a few thoughts this article brought to mind, and I’d like to hear yours.
GG
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