This reminds me of a study where some psychologists sat a kid down, gave him one bump of chocolate, then left the room for a few minutes, telling him that if he hadn't eaten the chocolate by the time they got back, he could have a whole bar. Some kids ate it, others had the willpower to wait and get the whole bar.
The interesting thing was, they then followed up with these kids later in life, and found the ones who went for deferred gratification at age 3 or 4 consistently did better in school and ended up with much higher paying jobs.
When it comes to brewing, I'm pretty good at choosing deferred gratification while my beer is in the fermenter. I simply don't bottle any sooner than 3 weeks, as I know it won't taste so good if I am too hasty.
It's harder once it is in the bottle, though, because this is no longer an either/or choice. I can try one bottle now, while keeping the others for later, so what's to lose, right?
But here's the thing.
I typically try one bottle after a couple of weeks, and it's too green.
I try another after three weeks, and it's pretty good.
After four weeks, it's great, so I start drinking it in larger quantities, and give some away to friends.
After six or seven weeks, it's all gone except for a couple of bottles, so I slow down my consumption rate (which is easy because by this time the next brew is ready).
Maybe four or five months later, I try the very last bottle. And wow. This is SO much better than it was earlier on!
This happens to me every time. Not once have I tasted that last bottle and thought "hmm, it's ok but this was better just 5 weeks in".
Every brew I ever did went on getting better and better right up to the bitter end. So I don't even really know where the peak would be. If I held onto a bottle for a year, or two years, would that be better still? There must be a crest somewhere, after which it starts going downhill, but I've never lasted long enough to find out where that is.
Obviously the right solution is for me to wait longer, so I could drink more of my beer at it's peak. But what can I say? I'm impatient, and it's already pretty good at the point when I start drinking it, so I eat the one bump of chocolate now even though I could get more if I waited...