Or at least wish I did? Due to my drinking buddy crying off our Friday evening pub visit, I was stuck without any beer.
Bugger. Hunting around for something to drink, other than opening a bottle of wine at 10.30 at night, it looked like I was going to enjoy the delights of a forgotten bottle of Kentucky Bourbon.
Then I found a wooden box stashed behind an occasional table with a bottle in it. Curious as to the contents, I dragged it out for closer inspection.
Turned out to be a bottle of Hog’s Back Brewery Vintage Ale, ABV6.3%, and bottle conditioned.
Said it would continue to improve for several years, see date on bottom. 06.03! Right, this could be interesting.
Had one of those wire flip-top stopper things, so I popped it open. Slight haze of vapour escapes, and bubbles appear in the beer, so that’s a good sign.
Carefully pour into my favourite Fuller’s ESB glass tankard, avoiding letting any sediment get into the glass.
Smells ok, very rich, so take a mouthful.
Oh Lordy! Quite possibly the best beer I’ve ever drunk! Really rich, smooth flavour, very strong toffee, burned sugar, a bit like Guiness, but no bitterness at all.
I could have wept when I finished it!
I also wouldn’t have wanted to drive afterwards, either!

You buying some more to lay down then?

You need some sort of dead man’s hand system to post and tell us when you succumb.

If, sorry if you succumb. 😉

assuming that you’re not stuck in some sort of time vortex, this all happened yesterday. It’s probably reasonable to think that if you’ve not yet suffered some terrible gut curdling fate it’s all going to be OK. On the other hand, if you do die can i have your bikes?

that’s good news, stella will go off in the bottle.

All I suffered was a very slight hangover. I don’t know if they even still do it; I doubt it, what with the fancy wood box n’all.
I can’t even remember where it came from, I guess I was given it as part of a Christmas or birthday pressy, and I put it to one side and forgot it.
If I’d known it was going to be that good I’d have hunted down some more!
I’m tempted to drop them an email, let them know just how good it was after eleven years!
It would be interesting to know if the ABV had increased; I was feeling quite extraordinarily mellow after one pint. 😀
Good to know that beer, given the right sort, can improve with age.

So on a Friday night you supped 1 bottle of beer but you didn’t open the wine or drink the bourbon.
Lightweight.

^this Half ten and youre not sure about opening a bottle of wine? Grow a pair you girl. Jesus.

He’d have still been drinking after midnight though & that means two consecutive days, the H&S police would have been knocking on the door

I’m not having that. Who can’t polish off a bottle of wine in an hour and a half?

Oh Lordy! Quite possibly the best beer I’ve ever drunk! Really rich, smooth flavour, very strong toffee, burned sugar, a bit like Guiness, but no bitterness at all.

If you rate Guinness I’m not surprised you found a 11 year old beer tasty. 😀

11 years old – is that all?

[url=https://flic.kr/p/ooiQxi]DSC_0110[/url] by ScotRoutes, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/oojoHP]DSC_0111[/url] by ScotRoutes, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/oojnQX]DSC_0112[/url] by ScotRoutes, on Flickr

I’m saving it for a special day

This isn’t what made you pay 135 quid for those tickets is it?

scotroutes, I also have a bottle of TH Ale, only from 1996 though.
Lovely lovely beer. I dont think I’ll ever drink mine, as once its gone, thats it. Especially as the brewery hasn’t existed for 10 years!

Also got a King and Barnes Christmas ale from 1995. Another brewery thats gone.

if you want to add to your collection sir .
http://www.wessex-homebrew.co.uk/page16.html#THOMAS

“It would be interesting to know if the ABV had increased; I was feeling quite extraordinarily mellow after one pint.”

No, not really, maybe 0.5-1%. The sediment is yeast which will go through secondary fermentation in the bottle and use some of the remaining sugars (This is why beer that has a higher sugar content i.e. primary fermentation was stopped before all the sugars were used tend to keep better for longer). The other by product of this is the (CO2) bubbles.

The main problem with bottling beer that you will age is that caps are not brilliant at keeping oxygen out.

And yes, email them, they would like to know, and they are lovely people!

(I work for micro brewery 30 miles from them. We have been doing some testing with ageing beer, but in cask…)

This is why beer that has a higher sugar content i.e. primary fermentation was stopped before all the sugars were used tend to keep better for longer

Can you explain this to me, luke?

How do you stop primary fermentation, by cold crashing once gravity hits a few points above where you expect it to finish up?

Then do you bottle and let it warm back up so that the yeast become active again and eat up the last of the sugars in the wort? If so, wouldn’t it be easier just to finish primary and then prime the bottles for bottle conditioning/carbing as normal?

What’s the difference between having an incomplete primary “finish” in the bottle, versus a regular primed bottle?

Also, how does the yeast clean up all the by products of fermentation if primary is cut short? Anything I’ve taken off the yeast early has tasted like shit.

Genuinely interested, I’ve got a huge year old RIS which still feels like it has a long way to go, but now starting to pick up oxidation problems so worried that it will succumb to that before it reaches its peak.

My first experience of Guinness was half a dozen bottles which we later discovered were three years out of date.

I was rough as houses for days. Not good.

That’s interesting Cougar. As far as I understand it there are no pathogens harmful to humans that can occur in beer. At worst it should just taste like shit.

Maybe you’re a cat?

AFAIK Guinness is pasteurised so unless it had reacted with the lid, I doubt there was anything to do you serious harm.
Cougar, are you, in fact, a lightweight? 😆

Peterfile:

“How do you stop primary fermentation, by cold crashing once gravity hits a few points above where you expect it to finish up?”

Yes, although cold crashing is not instant. You stop say at 1011, cool then see what it actually stabilizes at. Then adjust.

“Then do you bottle and let it warm back up so that….”

No. Ferment as normal, although you tend to stop it slightly earlier – therefore slightly weaker (alc), slightly more sugar. These are very slights. Cool down to drop out all of the yeast (not using finings). Bottle the clear beer, re-add a drop of yeast, seal. Note this is for bottle-conditioned beers. For the others, just filter/bottle/carbonate.

Note that we have very effective cooling/heating and sterile enviroment controls. It’s probably the biggest differences between home and commercial.

If you have oxidation, there is not much you can do. Beer is decomposing anyway and oxygen lets the bacteria go out and play 🙁 The ‘peak’is subjective anyway, hence ourselves and lots of other people researching it.

Hope that’s clear, ask away anything else. If you have specific questions, feel free to email me, I should be able to find out, the two owners have been doing this for 25+ years.

Id be more worried that you haven’t cleared up for 11 years ! Have you been on one of those channel 4 program’s about hoarders ?

Maybe you’re a cat?

Jury’s out.

Cougar, are you, in fact, a lightweight?

When I was a teenager, almost certainly.

That explains the unwellness after excessive alcohol in that case!

Thanks for that, Luke.

Yeah, I know the RIS is gone unfortunately, but keen to brew something similar and lay it down for a while, but obviously want to give it the best chance possible next time!

So, presumably that additional drop of yeast per bottle is sufficient to both clean up the beer and carb? I’ve done something vaguely similar when trying to neuter a beer (for an experiment). After I’d boiled off the alcohol, I primed and then added a bit of extra yeast before bottling. But, I think the yeast was either insufficient or stressed since it struggled to even carbonate to the correct volume. It actually turned out ok in the end. I used a hot plate stirrer, but the hop oils were destroyed so although it tasted OK, it was nothing like the beer it was. I have my eye on a vacuum distillation kit at my mum’s school which should allow me to get the boiling point of alcohol down to about 21 degrees, which should leave the hop oils intact. Just keen to see whether I can make an NA beer that tastes like a proper ale. Probably not, but it’s fun trying 🙂