Continuing our Cellarmanship series, about the joys and how-to of storing and aging your beer at home, we interviewed the brewers at Avery Brewing Co. in Boulder. Matt Thrall is Avery's head brewer and Andy Parker is the head of their barrel program. Avery's barrel program has brought us some spectacular beers including, but not limited to, Rumpkin, Uncle Jacob's Stout, Brabant, Immitis, and Muscat D'Amor. Avery's non-barrel aged beers are also delicious, you may have heard of some of these: Hog Heaven, DuganA, Mephistopheles, Samael's, The Czar, The Reverend, and Maharaja to name a few.
In this interview we talk to Andy and Matt about the joys of drinking beer fresh. We talk about off-flavors and oxygenation in aged beer, especially Trans 2 Nonenal which imparts cardboard flavors in addition to sherry and port flavors. We open up a vertical of Avery's Hog Heaven (and Mephistopheles for a later video). You might be surprised by some of the things they say about aging your beer at home. Also check out our previous interview with Eric and Lauren Salazar, of New Belgium, for more on the topic.
We're curious, what is in your home cellar? What types of beer do you prefer to age? Are you sitting on anything special? What's your most memorable experience with an aged beer? Have you had any go bad? Let us know what you think. Cheers!
***UPDATE - Be sure to check out our interviews with Crooked Stave and New Belgium as well!
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Thanks for the great content. I love and respect Avery Brewing. I was hoping to hear more about Mephistopheles! I've got a vertical going of Batch 1 to current.
ReplyDeleteRight now, the only beers that I've held onto are typically imperial stouts and the occasional smoked porter. I do have a couple other styles, but I tend not to age anything longer than 1-2 years at most. I held onto one imperial stout for 6 years once, but to be honest, it wasn't what I had expected it to be after all that time. Only beers over 10% are typically ones I'll consider aging.
ReplyDeleteI think the Avery guys had it right, oxidation tends to become a big factor in aged beers.
I had the opportunity to try 3 different aged Alaskan smoked porter beers at the Vail Big Beers festival this year. Smoked beers age wonderfully and keep changing. Those are good candidates as well.
Loved this video - the Avery guys seem to be very knowledgeable on beer aging. Would like to see more of these discussions.
I really like these interviews. The format and topic are great. I like how straight forward and fact filled they are. Lets face it aging a bottle of Bud is silly yet aging a Silver Oak cabernet is heavenly. The wonderful thing about this topic is that the spectrum of brews is gigantic and time is infinitely variable. Through this experimentation of aging on beers, meads, barley wines, etc, one of us may stumble onto something amazing. Well done!
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