Managing the Homebrew Pipeline

I'm now three brews in and am trying to figure out how to best manage my homebrew inventory. I really like my first brew (a Sierra Nevada pale ale clone) , and am down to about 14 bottles remaining.

So can you fine folks tell me how you manage your batches of homebrew? Do you stash some for later? If it's great now (IMO), do I just drink it all and enjoy it now? I'm 5 weeks in bottle after 1 week in primary and 2 weeks in secondary.

My second brew was the Brewer's Best PSA IPA and has been in bottle for about 2 weeks. Had one last night and thought it needs to mellow a bit.

I've heard you don't want IPAs to sit too long, but not sure if the same can be said for an American pale ale such as my first.

Any beers that I think are pretty good but not great now, I save a sixer of them and then try them again in a couple of months. They usually taste better.

Any beers that really benefit from a hop aroma should be drank rather quickly. Hop aroma fades pretty fast.

The hop aroma in a pale ale does fade but it takes a while. Mine was pretty good for a couple months but faded by the third month. Tricks to make your pale ale ready to drink sooner include fermenting cool so you don't have off flavors to wait for them to dissipate, longer fermentation so any off flavors dissipate before they go into the bottles, and waiting to dry hop until the last few days before bottling. Your beer does need some time in the bottles to carbonate but if you have followed the suggestions you will have drinkable beer in a week if you carbonate at 72. The beer should have at least 24 hours to chill too.

For me, it's still difficult to get a good pipeline going. Finally got one now, saving some from every batch. Drink half, save half. Always thinking, okay, I got this to last me until this other is ready. In 3 weeks I should have 7 cases of beer in bottles. Helps that I can't drink for 2 weeks with the meds I am taking.

If you have a fridge to store them in, they'll last awhile unless they had lots of late / dry hops.

Brew so much you can't keep up with it all, and you'll automatically have "aged" beers!

I rotate my brews between a fast fermenting beer like a pale ale then a beer that will need some age like an imperial stout. I will usually use a yeast strain that I can use twice after washing. Belgian Blonde then a trippel or Irish Red then an irish stout

I'm finally getting a small inventory built up but I still make monthly trips to the beer distributor. One mistake I made that is slowing up my production was brewing a saison which is going to be another 2 months before ready to taste. I have a lot of things I want to try but hate to tie up all my fermenters, so I'm looking at short term beers now. I'm planning on 10 gallons per month for the next few months to have a decent inventory.

The Mrs. and I had a baby which has allowed me to get a pretty nice pipeline going. Although my technique had greatly improved since I built my MLT which is resulting in better beer which is great but my friends are more likely to drink 3 or 4 as opposed to 1.

i am jealous, i have one i just bottled (2/23)- Brewers best oktoberfest, and have a patriotic amber ale in the primary. I am not worried about the pipeline, i am just excited to drink some/any of it!

Pipelines are fun to get built up. Sad when they start to dry out. I am a firm believer in the whole buy yet another fermenter and get another batch going. I am trying to keep all 3 taps full all the time in my keezer, but I took too long of a break and things are getting a tad light. I think I will do another 3 batches so i have some spare full kegs for when the next 2 kick, but basically time how long it takes you to finish a batch. Brew faster than that rate and slow down when you run out of bottles.

I second making an extended aging batch and having a quick turn around batch going at the same time.

It might be sensible to make a couple of medium-strength malt oriented beers that you can count on to stick around longer. They're a good fallback.