The benefits of aging

With about 5 batches under my belt, I finally had a noticeable taste advantage in aging my beer. I brewed an amber ale and it was the darkest beer that I've made. I had to wait for 3 weeks until I could bottle this one because it just kept fermenting... When I started drinking them about 2 weeks later, it was a good beer, but something wasn't right. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it just wasn't a smooth drinking beer.

I've been really busy lately and I haven't had time to enjoy beer as much as I would like (is that even possible?), but I cracked one open the other night after it had been bottle for about 5 weeks now and I was SHOCKED how much better it tasted. It just seemed that the flavors blended together better, it was a smoother drinking beer.

I suppose this "better taste" could be attributed to having just the right temperature of the beer, or mood, or what i was eating, etc, etc. But from what I've heard about aging, this wasn't superficial.

Can anyone explain what is going on here? I've heard the "3 Months" number thrown out, what can I expect as far as aging to that point?

Thanks Y'all!


Caleb

It all depends on the type obviously (i.e. IPA vs. doppelbock vs. stout), but I've noticed the same. My current IIPA has only gotten better over the last few weeks-considerably sweet a few weeks ago, but now the sweetness has receded and now it's considerably more hoppy/floral. About the only aging-gone-wrong that I've had was a dark stout that I made earlier this year that apparently oxidized, and the entire batch just got worse as time went on.

Scientifically speaking, all I can say is that the yeasties have more time to clean up the post-party mess when you age, making for a cleaner (and undoubtedly better tasting) brew.