Aging My Bottled Conditioned Beers

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sonvolt

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So, I still have about 10 pint bottles of my Christmas Celebration ale. I intentionally kept them so that I could age them until next year's holiday season. It is a biggish beer at 7% ABV - not a lot of hops, but spiced up with some Ginger, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, and Sweet Orange Peel.

Anyway, I bottle conditioned it in my basement at around 60-65 degrees or so. Now that it is good and conditioned - tastes great, btw - what is the best way to condition this for such a long time?

Is 60-65 degrees in the basement ok? Would cold storage in my beer fridge be better? I have plenty of room in my fridge to store it . . . so what is the best practice in order to ensure that the beer ages well, considering it may be 10-11 months before I crack another?
 
I never kept any that long but I never cooled any of my beers below 65 to 68 or so and they only seem to get better with age. The longest I've ever kept any was about eight months, and they were (like all of them) best at the end.
 
You should be ok. That's about where my ales were kept before I got the aging chest built and my 2005 holiday ale is still doing well. The 2003 barley wine is getting better.

Highly hopped ales don't seem to age gracefully, at least the ones I have, both homebrew and commercial.
 

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