WEBVTT - Is There a Science to Aging Beer? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.560 Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:10.319 brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here, a cold, fresh beer 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:12.760 is tasty at all, but have you ever tried one 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.400 that's perfectly aged in a beer seller? That's right. Just 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.919 like wine collectors age their wine, more brew enthusiasts are 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.360 dabbling in the art of aging beer. In some cases, 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.840 the multi year old beer tastes subtly better. In other 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.960 cases it's entirely undrinkable. That's the fun of this increasingly 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.320 popular hobby. You the beer ager, become part of the 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.680 beer production process. Ingredients in certain beers can change with age, 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.320 giving beer collectors the freedom to play with flavors and 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.000 tweak beers to their liking. But we spoke with Eric Dunaway, 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.560 lead beer buyer for Jungle Gym's international market, which sells 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.400 more than four thousand different types of beer in southern Ohio. 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.000 He said, the beers we want to age are beers that, 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.000 for one reason or another, may develop in interesting ways 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.320 as time goes on. Multiply vers may change or develop, 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.440 Fermentation flavors may increase over time, and if the beer 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.440 is in fact barrel aged, that may become more apparent 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.200 when bottle aged. True beer aging is more than simply 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.759 throwing beer on a shelf and forgetting about it. It's 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.800 a science. It takes practice, experimentation, and the willingness to 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.160 mess up and start over again. That said, there are 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.440 some ground rules when it comes to aging beer. It's 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.080 best to avoid aging hoppy beers like I. P. A 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.920 S because hops are quite volatile. Dunaway explained the aroma 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.360 and flavoring that hops provide to a beer are actually 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:37.760 a result of the most fragile elements of the hops. 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:39.880 The hops will be the first thing to sort of 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.600 fall apart in the beer. You should drink these beers 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.240 as fresh as possible. The beers that do age well 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.880 fall under the wild beer's category. This includes anything aged 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.200 by wild organisms think Flanders, reds Lambix, and American wild ales. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.000 That's because those wild bacteria and yeasts bring interesting things 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.400 to the party, and they're already a little funky to 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.240 begin with. Multi beers like quads, barley wines, and imperial 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.480 stouts are also good candidates for aging because those malts 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.639 can develop in interesting ways. Sours are also good candidates 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.640 because they tend to get more sour as they age. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.160 The beer will change depending on several things. It's style, complexity, 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.480 and flavors. Some beers will become more dry, while others 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.760 will taste yeastier and become more complex. Alcohol content plays 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.040 apart two, and the higher the alcohol content, the more 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.400 likely a beer is to maintain its original characteristics or 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.480 to develop well over time. I think seven percent alcohol 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:40.040 bi volume or higher. But all that being said, aging 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.640 even a great candidate beer, is tricky. According to Dunaway, 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:45.919 there's no hard and fast rule for when an aging 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.520 beer is ready to be consumed. It comes down to 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:53.480 trial error and unfortunately a lot of wasted beer. Dunaway said, 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:56.080 if all you want to do is drink a tasty beer, 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.800 then there's no need to age beer at all. Just 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.360 drink all the fresh beer you want. The purpose of 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:03.840 aging beer is to gain a better understanding of how 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.080 beer works, and beer aging is like a grown up 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:11.000 science experiment. Dunaway recommends buying multiple bottles of the same beer, 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.280 drinking one fresh bottle, then logging notes about the fresh 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.800 one so you can revisit and compare tastes with the 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.160 other aged bottles in the future. He said, if you 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.360 only buy one bottle, of something and you age it 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.480 for two years, while it might taste awesome, but you 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:27.400 have no idea if it changed or not, or if 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.720 it changed for the worse. And this beer log doesn't 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.200 have to be pen and paper. Yes, there's an app 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:37.480 for that. Beer. Seller List and seller h Q capitalize 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.440 on the beer aging trend with user friendly interfaces that 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:44.120 make beer organizing easy. You can add personalized beer reviews 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.720 and scan in new brewis with the upc to keep 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.640 tabs on what's working and what's not. Some d i 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.520 Y beer collectors swear by color coding methodologies, using specific 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.360 stickers for each year to track when brewis were purchased 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:01.040 and more importantly, when they're ready for drinking. Unfortunately, there's 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.400 no set signs for when an aged beer is ready. 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.240 You can age some beer for months, some beer for 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.400 years and even decades, but Dunaway does have a few 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.080 timeline tips to keep in mind. Quote. Among the styles 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.680 of beer that are age worthy, some are more age 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.360 worthy than others. If you have a Belgian Triple that's 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.600 two years old, I wouldn't think anything of that. It's 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:22.840 probably still drinking great, but I don't think it will 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.520 last a decade On the other hand, I've had English 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.479 barley wines that were fifteen years old and we're still fantastic. 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.479 Just like wine, aged beer needs to be kept in 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:36.080 mild conditions, not too hot, not too cold. The latter 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.440 slows down or halts the aging process. Instead of stowing 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.120 bottles on their sides, like many wine collectors, you should 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:47.240 store beer bottles upright to avoid unwanted flavor manipulations. Dunaway said, 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:49.400 if you turn it on its side, all of that 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:51.840 yeast is going to settle along the entire side of 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.360 the bottle instead of being concentrated at the bottom. This 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.560 changes the surface ratio of how much beer is exposed 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:00.960 to the yeast. You can end up with some weird 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.000 things where the yeast starts eating sugars that it otherwise wouldn't. 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.839 You end up with bottles that are overcarbonated or take 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.720 on weird fermentation flavors, And dear listener, I can tell 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.200 you that one is correct from the personal experience of 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.760 aging a festive ale that wound up tasting like a 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.600 fur net. But hey, even a climate controlled seller apparently 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.919 has nothing on the ocean floor. In Fittish divers uncovered 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.680 crates of intact wine and beer from a two year 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.760 old shipwreck on the floor of the Baltic Sea. The result, 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.080 the wine tasted fresh with clear acidity, and the beer 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:37.920 frothed up perfectly, indicating that the yeast was somehow still alive. 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.719 Today's episode was written by Stephanie Vermilion and produced by 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.520 Tyler Clay. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio's 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.320 How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.960 other fresh topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.719 dot com. And for more podcasts from my heart Radio, 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.680 visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:08.920 listen to your favorite shows.