Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here, a cold, fresh beer
Speaker 1: is tasty at all, but have you ever tried one
Speaker 1: that's perfectly aged in a beer seller? That's right. Just
Speaker 1: like wine collectors age their wine, more brew enthusiasts are
Speaker 1: dabbling in the art of aging beer. In some cases,
Speaker 1: the multi year old beer tastes subtly better. In other
Speaker 1: cases it's entirely undrinkable. That's the fun of this increasingly
Speaker 1: popular hobby. You the beer ager, become part of the
Speaker 1: beer production process. Ingredients in certain beers can change with age,
Speaker 1: giving beer collectors the freedom to play with flavors and
Speaker 1: tweak beers to their liking. But we spoke with Eric Dunaway,
Speaker 1: lead beer buyer for Jungle Gym's international market, which sells
Speaker 1: more than four thousand different types of beer in southern Ohio.
Speaker 1: He said, the beers we want to age are beers that,
Speaker 1: for one reason or another, may develop in interesting ways
Speaker 1: as time goes on. Multiply vers may change or develop,
Speaker 1: Fermentation flavors may increase over time, and if the beer
Speaker 1: is in fact barrel aged, that may become more apparent
Speaker 1: when bottle aged. True beer aging is more than simply
Speaker 1: throwing beer on a shelf and forgetting about it. It's
Speaker 1: a science. It takes practice, experimentation, and the willingness to
Speaker 1: mess up and start over again. That said, there are
Speaker 1: some ground rules when it comes to aging beer. It's
Speaker 1: best to avoid aging hoppy beers like I. P. A
Speaker 1: S because hops are quite volatile. Dunaway explained the aroma
Speaker 1: and flavoring that hops provide to a beer are actually
Speaker 1: a result of the most fragile elements of the hops.
Speaker 1: The hops will be the first thing to sort of
Speaker 1: fall apart in the beer. You should drink these beers
Speaker 1: as fresh as possible. The beers that do age well
Speaker 1: fall under the wild beer's category. This includes anything aged
Speaker 1: by wild organisms think Flanders, reds Lambix, and American wild ales.
Speaker 1: That's because those wild bacteria and yeasts bring interesting things
Speaker 1: to the party, and they're already a little funky to
Speaker 1: begin with. Multi beers like quads, barley wines, and imperial
Speaker 1: stouts are also good candidates for aging because those malts
Speaker 1: can develop in interesting ways. Sours are also good candidates
Speaker 1: because they tend to get more sour as they age.
Speaker 1: The beer will change depending on several things. It's style, complexity,
Speaker 1: and flavors. Some beers will become more dry, while others
Speaker 1: will taste yeastier and become more complex. Alcohol content plays
Speaker 1: apart two, and the higher the alcohol content, the more
Speaker 1: likely a beer is to maintain its original characteristics or
Speaker 1: to develop well over time. I think seven percent alcohol
Speaker 1: bi volume or higher. But all that being said, aging
Speaker 1: even a great candidate beer, is tricky. According to Dunaway,
Speaker 1: there's no hard and fast rule for when an aging
Speaker 1: beer is ready to be consumed. It comes down to
Speaker 1: trial error and unfortunately a lot of wasted beer. Dunaway said,
Speaker 1: if all you want to do is drink a tasty beer,
Speaker 1: then there's no need to age beer at all. Just
Speaker 1: drink all the fresh beer you want. The purpose of
Speaker 1: aging beer is to gain a better understanding of how
Speaker 1: beer works, and beer aging is like a grown up
Speaker 1: science experiment. Dunaway recommends buying multiple bottles of the same beer,
Speaker 1: drinking one fresh bottle, then logging notes about the fresh
Speaker 1: one so you can revisit and compare tastes with the
Speaker 1: other aged bottles in the future. He said, if you
Speaker 1: only buy one bottle, of something and you age it
Speaker 1: for two years, while it might taste awesome, but you
Speaker 1: have no idea if it changed or not, or if
Speaker 1: it changed for the worse. And this beer log doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be pen and paper. Yes, there's an app
Speaker 1: for that. Beer. Seller List and seller h Q capitalize
Speaker 1: on the beer aging trend with user friendly interfaces that
Speaker 1: make beer organizing easy. You can add personalized beer reviews
Speaker 1: and scan in new brewis with the upc to keep
Speaker 1: tabs on what's working and what's not. Some d i
Speaker 1: Y beer collectors swear by color coding methodologies, using specific
Speaker 1: stickers for each year to track when brewis were purchased
Speaker 1: and more importantly, when they're ready for drinking. Unfortunately, there's
Speaker 1: no set signs for when an aged beer is ready.
Speaker 1: You can age some beer for months, some beer for
Speaker 1: years and even decades, but Dunaway does have a few
Speaker 1: timeline tips to keep in mind. Quote. Among the styles
Speaker 1: of beer that are age worthy, some are more age
Speaker 1: worthy than others. If you have a Belgian Triple that's
Speaker 1: two years old, I wouldn't think anything of that. It's
Speaker 1: probably still drinking great, but I don't think it will
Speaker 1: last a decade On the other hand, I've had English
Speaker 1: barley wines that were fifteen years old and we're still fantastic.
Speaker 1: Just like wine, aged beer needs to be kept in
Speaker 1: mild conditions, not too hot, not too cold. The latter
Speaker 1: slows down or halts the aging process. Instead of stowing
Speaker 1: bottles on their sides, like many wine collectors, you should
Speaker 1: store beer bottles upright to avoid unwanted flavor manipulations. Dunaway said,
Speaker 1: if you turn it on its side, all of that
Speaker 1: yeast is going to settle along the entire side of
Speaker 1: the bottle instead of being concentrated at the bottom. This
Speaker 1: changes the surface ratio of how much beer is exposed
Speaker 1: to the yeast. You can end up with some weird
Speaker 1: things where the yeast starts eating sugars that it otherwise wouldn't.
Speaker 1: You end up with bottles that are overcarbonated or take
Speaker 1: on weird fermentation flavors, And dear listener, I can tell
Speaker 1: you that one is correct from the personal experience of
Speaker 1: aging a festive ale that wound up tasting like a
Speaker 1: fur net. But hey, even a climate controlled seller apparently
Speaker 1: has nothing on the ocean floor. In Fittish divers uncovered
Speaker 1: crates of intact wine and beer from a two year
Speaker 1: old shipwreck on the floor of the Baltic Sea. The result,
Speaker 1: the wine tasted fresh with clear acidity, and the beer
Speaker 1: frothed up perfectly, indicating that the yeast was somehow still alive.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Stephanie Vermilion and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clay. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of
Speaker 1: other fresh topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. And for more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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