How Long to Get to That Last Bottle?

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smata67

smata67

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I'm planning my pipeline and actually am way ahead of the game, I'm approaching 3 months from bottling on several brews. So, should I try to get my batches drunk within 3 months? Is this too long? Maybe its my imagination, but I think I've lost bitterness on some of these older brews and that they may have actually tasted better 1-2 months from bottling. We're talking about mid gravity beers here like bitters, pale ales, irish ales.
 
Most of those types of beers are good to me around 1-2 months. They will start to lose a little hop flavor over time, but the malt flavors will also become more complex. Age makes most beer better.

I usually have about 6-10 different beers in bottles at any given time and 3-4 kegs on tap. It'll take me a few months to a year to finish a batch.
 
Beer will lose bitterness with time. Beers that have a big hop flavor like apas and ipas I like to start drinking just as quick as their fully carbed and have at least a few days of cold conditioning, this is usually at about the 3 week mark. I do this so I get all that big hop flavor and aroma before it starts to fade and their usually all drank up within 2 months. Beers like stouts and porters though seem to take longer for the flavors to mellow and gel together but you dont usually have any hop flavor here to lose so going 2 months before drinking doesn't hurt you any. This is just my opinion based on my personal experiences.
 
JBrady said:
Beer will lose bitterness with time. Beers that have a big hop flavor like apas and ipas I like to start drinking just as quick as their fully carbed and have at least a few days of cold conditioning, this is usually at about the 3 week mark. I do this so I get all that big hop flavor and aroma before it starts to fade and their usually all drank up within 2 months. Beers like stouts and porters though seem to take longer for the flavors to mellow and gel together but you dont usually have any hop flavor here to lose so going 2 months before drinking doesn't hurt you any. This is just my opinion based on my personal experiences.
Click to expand...

I'm presently drinking the confirmation of your statement, less bitterness and, as a result, more apparent maltiness after 3 months in the bottle for this bitter.
 
You just gotta figure how much you drink each night. That tells you right away how long a batch will last you.

You're three months from bottling on several brews. Sounds like your pipeline is too big (tough problem to have, eh?).

As an example, if you want to brew once a month, five gallons, you get roughly 48 beers that month to drink. That's like 1.5 per day. If that works for you, then you've got your pipeline. You can make this arbitrarily more complicated if you want to figure in aging beers, and the like, but in general it's pretty simple math to figure out how often to brew.
 

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