Hop-geared barleywine(Bigfoot clone) aging...

I've bought multiple cases of SN Bigfoot in '05, '06, '07, and '08 and my favorite bottles are always whenever they are their freshest. I love the "in your face" hop flavor of the fresher brews, which is less obvious in the aged examples. Here's my question. All I ever hear on here about aging a barleywine is, "You've got to age it for a year or more!" How long is Bigfoot actually aged, if at all, before it reaches the stores? The beer will be stored in a keg, so I'll be hooking it up to a line every now and then and tasting it, but I'm just curious as to what I should expect.

I disliked Bigfoot until I aged it for about 6 months at 55 degrees. Then I thought it was a great beer. I know that many people age them for like a year. I'd shoot SN an email and see if you get a response.

I would be surprised if they age it for more than a couple months before it leaves the brewery. Reason I say that is because to age beer costs money and they can't make more beer with the previous batch sitting around taking up vital brewery space.

Bigfoot has a hop character you don't get in other barleywines or even in most double IPAs. A bunch of us homebrewers were getting at a party and hypothesized that they must use some amount of hop extract to get it to the level of in-your-face hoppiness they do, esp. since it seems to keep more hop character with age than you see with other big hoppy beers.

Would be interesting to confirm or refute the hop extract hypothesis...