21 beer

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Jay1

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My brother in-law and brew partner is gonna have a kid. I mentioned to him about a country that would age a beer until the kids 21st birthday and we both got really excited about this. We plan on making a 15% barly wine.

Has anyone ever aged a beer for a really long time?
 
Am I the first one to do this? Nobody has aged a big beer for a couple decades?
 
I haven't, (yet) but it sounds like a helluva idea, especially for a child to reach 21. I have heard of meads that old, and currently have one mead that I hope has a few bottles last that long, we shall see. Good luck!
 
Your biggest concerns are probably going to be (initially) attenuation/alcohol tolerance of your yeast, and then oxidation over 21 years- if you can get to 15% with all malt (consider brewing on a 10g system and boiling down to 5g) you'll be a rare brewer. I'd like to humbly suggest that you go with high attenuating, high alcohol tolerant yeast that is NOT WLP099 for the best results. Mash at a moderate temperature (152-153) for a LONG LONG time for best attenuation.

I would also bottle with oxygen-absorbing caps, in bottles with slightly less heaspace than usual, and wax the caps to prevent as much oxidation as possible.
 
That is a wild idea, but I don't think I could hold something for that long.

I imagine that when my kids reach that age, we'll brew something up that they want to drink. Not sure a barleywine was what I wanted on my 21st. It is a neat idea though for other milestones in life.
 
What a cool idea: Time Capsule Barley Wine. Make sure to save several bottles and include a note lest someone gets thirsty in the meantime.
 
You're probably gonna want to cork it like a champagne bottle, or dip the crown cap in a couple layers of sealing wax. Just about every commercial "aging beer" in my cellar comes one of those two ways, because just a naked crown cap won't keep the oxygen out over a multi-year timespan.

I imagine champagne-style corking is out-of-scope, but I seem to recall stumbling across a couple threads here on wax sealing...

I'd also not bother much with hops or spices -- I've had hoppy or spiced beers around five, seven years old, there wasn't much left at that age, I can't imagine there'd be anything there after two decades.
 
I'm really excited to do this. We're gonna take some pictures of us making it and probably throw a couple other things in. Thanks for the info on oxygen absorbing caps and waxing the top. That is a must! I'm thinking about finding some sort of box that I can put it in and putting some of those Silica bags in it that your not supposed to eat, or some other type of moisture absorbing material.

I've done 15+ beers before with a ton (1 straight package and one in a 1.8L starter on a stir-plate) of 1056 and everything turned out great.

I only have a 10 gal Igloo for a mash-tun so, I'm probably gonna max out the mash-tun and then do a BIAB side by side. I'll keep some DME on hand just in case I don't make it.

Brewing is an art and a science. I want to plan this out as much as possible but there will be a time that I just let go and brew and see what happens.
 
Can I throw a suggestion at you?


Why not a sour?

A lambic, or geuze.

It would take you 2-4 years to even bottle that.

BTW, cool idea.
 
Some meads can stay in secondary for years. I've heard of one in particular that was in for nine years.

I love this idea too. I'm going to do this for my 3 month old. Probably a sour.
 

If you are making a big beer with a neutral yeast, you should use a dry yeast. Compare the starter size to the number of packets of Nottingham and you will probably agree with me.
 
If you don't want to boil down 10G you could also make the batch partygyle. Getting +1.100 is pretty easy to do, then you only have to boil down a couple gallons. Or supplement with DME
 
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