How Long is too Long to Lager

I have a homebrew competition coming up in October 2012, yep 11 months away and I am starting to think about my brew for it. I have decided since it is an octoberfest type of event that I want a stronger than average lager that is on the darker range of maibock. I don't want a weaker gravity octoberfest type of beer, I am talking 1.067 or so and 35 IBU. I have a nice O-fest wyeast cake that will be available in a week and I am thinking about throwing this beer on that.

The thing is by the time the beer is ready to rack to secondary for lagering it will be 10 months from competition. I am wondering if lagering for that long is a good or bad thing. I am going to assume that if I keep the environment oxygen free and cold that the beer will be a malty treat, but I am not well versed in lagers.

You should be fine as long you do transfer it to a secondary. Heck, I would think that the 10 months would make a nice smooth bock... I would even consider doing an eisbock with that time frame.

Well, how'd it go?

Aunt_Ester said:

Well, how'd it go?

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Posting from the future?


Longest I've done is 3 months. If I did 10 months I would pick up the same yeast at bottling time and maybe pitch some of it into the beer.

Aunt_Ester said:

Well, how'd it go?

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I am currently lagering a 1.064 maibock and a 1.077 OG Rye Bock.......both should be tasty when I decide to tap them.

Does lagering for that period of time kill the body of the beer. I left a black lager in my kegerator at 42 degrees for the last 10 months, now I'm afraid if I neglected it for too long should I just dump it so I don't get myself sick. I checked the gravity and it was where it should be, but it tastes a little off, not much flavor. I feel like all of the hop flavor is gone at this point so would dry hopping for a week be a good idea while it carbs up in the keg?

njrockpd said:

Does lagering for that period of time kill the body of the beer. I left a black lager in my kegerator at 42 degrees for the last 10 months, now I'm afraid if I neglected it for too long should I just dump it so I don't get myself sick. I checked the gravity and it was where it should be, but it tastes a little off, not much flavor. I feel like all of the hop flavor is gone at this point so would dry hopping for a week be a good idea while it carbs up in the keg?

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lagering will not kill the body, that happens or doesn't in the mash tun. you won't get sick from anything in a beer.

So what would lagering for a extended period of time do to the flavor of the beer?

njrockpd said:

So what would lagering for a extended period of time do to the flavor of the beer?

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it should improve the flavor.

permo said:

I am currently lagering a 1.064 maibock and a 1.077 OG Rye Bock.......both should be tasty when I decide to tap them.

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So, how'd this turn out? Did you end up leaving the Maibock untouched until October? How was the taste?

I finished the maibock a few months ago, and just put the ryebock on tap recently.

The maibock and ryebock are both excellent. I will say that the maibock was especially excellent and retained much more hop flavor and aroma than I thought it would. For big lagers, I will go ahead and say, the longer the better