Sure, ageing your bad beer for 6 or 12 months will probably improve it but if I brew an English or American Ale then I expect to be drinking it and enjoying it after 3 weeks, from grain to glass. I only brew ales at the moment, and lagers and some ales often require longer ageing.
I try to do primary for one week, seconday for one week, then bottle. I expect it to taste good after 3 weeks and great after 4 weeks. I notice the flavour and aroma changes a lot between 3-4 weeks, but as time goes on the changes in the beer each week diminishes from week to week. My beer doesn't always improve in time, it can also be sad to notice some desirable flavours and aromas diminish with time.
Between weeks 3 and 4 from mash day, every day I really notice changes in things like malt and hop flavour and aroma, and the mellowing of esters. This is usually the second week of bottle conditioning for me. Flavours and aromas that I wanted to have that are strong or unbalanced will possibly/probably mellow and blend into something better after a week or two.
If my beer still tastes bad after after a month then I probably did something wrong. While putting my bad beer in a dark forgotten place for a year doesn't take much effort, instead of putting the whole disaster out of sight and out of mind, I would rather work out where I went wrong. If I have flavours like cardboard, band-aids, butter or yoghurt in my beer then I have a problem. Aging a bad beer is not going to help me make better beer in the future. The best thing that can come from making bad beer is working out where I went wrong and changing that part of the process so I never make beer like that again.
A brief description of off flavours and what produces them can be found at
The common Homebrew Off flavors and aromas in your beer along with the symptoms,causes and remedies..
If your English Pale Ale tastes like bubblegum or cloves or cinammon then you probably fermented too hot for your yeast. High fermentation temp is possibly the easiest way to go wrong when making beer. Fermenting an English or American Ale at 18*C (64*F) will give very different results than the same beer fermented at 22*C (71*F). Brewing with an English Ale yeast at 24*C (75*F) or above is not going to produce a beer that tastes like an English Ale. If like me you can't afford to, or be bothered to, control your fermentation temperature then you should choose a style of beer and a yeast that is suitable for your environment.
I ferment on the floor under my kitchen table, so during winter and spring I can ferment at about 20*C (68*F).This is an acceptable fermentation temperature for a lot of ales. During summer my cold water temperature doesn't get below 22*C (72*F) so my wort chiller won't cool any lower than that temperature. Fermentation temperature under my kitchen table during summer tends to be about 26*C (79*F) or higher so I'm brewing Saison at this time of year. This is a style that is often brewed at 30*C (86*F) so it's a problem for me keeping my fermentation temperature high enough instead of low enough. If I had a basement or garage that was around 6*C (43*F) in winter then I would probably be brewing lager at that time of year. But I don't have a basement or a garage so I don't brew lager. I'd like to have a temperature contolled chest freezer to ferment in so I can brew any style at any time of the year, but until I get one I will brew beer styles that suit the ambient temperature under my kitchen table.
If you have a sour taste in a beer and you saw a film develop on top during fermentation then you probably had an infection. The reason people are always talking about good sanitation when they talk about home brewing is because it is very important. If you want to brew a sour beer then do it on purpose. Unplanned innoculations are unlikely to yield nice results. I like sour beers, but if I make one I want to make it on purpose. I don't want to start out intending to make a pale ale that I later try to convince myself has some redeeming features vaguely resembling a Lambic.
Sometimes unexpected flavours can be good. I have had a nice unexpected Kiwi fruit flavour in one beer. At another time I made beer with some nice unexpected bubblegum flavours by fermenting with a strain of English Ale yeast at high temperature. Generally though I find unexpected flavours to be unwanted flavours, and there's a big difference between a nice subtle kiwi fruit flavour and a disturbing wet dog aroma.
I have also packed away some bad beer hoping it will improve. After reading this thread tonight I put a bottle that I packed away about 8 months ago into the fridge tonight and sampled it again. It was really bad a while ago, and while it's not as bad as I remember, it's still not a good beer. And plenty of beer I have made since then has been good without having to put it away for a any more than a week.
Putting your bad beer away might improve it but it's no replacement for making good beer in the first place. My advice is to use a yeast that suits your fermentation temperature and practice good sanitation. Then you will probably make beer that dosn't need to be stashed away for a year before it is drinkable.
Cheers,
Jaf.
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