21 year beer?

So we are expecting our first (human baby) at the beginning of November. I'm pondering brewing a beer that we save until this little future-adult's 21st birthday....not a single bottle opened before.

Other than general enormity, any thoughts recipe design?

do a mead.

An Old Ale or Barley wine would be able to stand up to that age. Good luck on having a 21 year old appreciate it though.

Mead was my first thought. Old Ale, Barleywine, RIS, or Belgian Quad would be good. Me? I'd go sour. Do a proper 3 consecutive years of Lambic blended into Gueuze.

I admire that you think you have the patience to waits 21 years to open even one of the beers. I am having trouble waiting 1 year for the wee heavy I made last October when my son was born. Good Luck.

dubiouschewy said:

So we are expecting our first (human baby) at the beginning of November. I'm pondering brewing a beer that we save until this little future-adult's 21st birthday....not a single bottle opened before.

Other than general enormity, any thoughts recipe design?

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Human baby as opposed to what...?

kaz4121 said:

Human baby as opposed to what...?

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I just mailed out a bottle that I cellared for 20 years.

I'd do an American barleywine with an insane level of hops in it and a couple oak cubes to dissolve over that time.

Weezy said:

I just mailed out a bottle that I cellared for 20 years.

I'd do an American barleywine with an insane level of hops in it and a couple oak cubes to dissolve over that time.

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Why on earth didn't you keep it??

I agree on a lot of hops. You might also want to do something with brettanomyces and a fair amount of crystal malts, or perhaps a lager yeast that will ferment slowly.

Oh it's an Ood, love an Ood!

Sounds like a great project and i love the ideas. Hope to see a pic of you and your child enjoying the brew on this thread in 21 years.

Congratulations on your new addition.

Cheers and good luck

Dave

That Ood might have to go on the label..... or might that get taken the wrong way somehow?

Thanks for the insights! I considered making a mead, but, well, I like beer better. However, some honey or other simple sugars will almost certainly come into play!

After reading a bit about beer and wine aging, it seems like 3 key factors for good aging are tannins, alcohol, and pH. This makes me lean towards a real kitchen sink of an imperial stout in the general spirit of Abyss.

Since I'd actually like this beer to peak WAY later than normal, I'm wondering just how 'over the top' to go. At any rate, now I've got some more thoughts (and more questions!) on target metrics and possible ingredients.

-ABV: 12+%
-IBU: saturated (100+)
-SRM: moonless night at the bottom of the ocean

-Grains: English style ratios to hit my strength, and lots of dark malt for tannins (like, possibly I'd start with the RIS recipe in Brewing Classic Styles and up the chocolates/roasts by 25%-50%)

-Sugars: Molasses, maybe honey

-Hops: Does it even matter? Maybe I'll just throw 150 IBU of centennial or chinook in at the start of the boil. Judging from the few beers I've samples at 10 years old, there's not gonna be much hop anything left after 21 years. Any remaining bitterness would likely come from tannins.

-spices: Boy, I just don't know. Ever tasted a highly aged spiced beer? Was there any spice character left? Seems like something like cinnamon or anise would hold up awhile, as most beers I've tasted with those ingredients were completely overpowered

-oak and bulk-aging: And speaking of tannins! Anyone have insight on highly-oaked beers? Since I won't have access to barrels (or enough beer to fill them), I'm wondering how much oak-chip aging is too much? I know there are *general* guidelines a mere internet search away, but I'm more curious as to whether there's an effective saturation point within a range that will eventually be drinkable, or whether there's a point after which the beer is always going to taste like a used tea-bag no matter how long it sits around! Any wine geeks able to weigh in?

-bottle aging: I am thinking corks and cages are appropriate here, or maybe caps with a wax dip, but I would welcome input on other creative packaging notions for the long haul.

OK. Brain dump complete. Thanks again for the helpful replies.

Maybe something along the lines of Revvy's 50th birthday Barleywine. Complex, dark, high ABV. Go over the top and have fun with it. And worst case (heh, case of beer, punny) you only have to choke one down every year with him/her and can be done by the time your spawn is 45.

I think if you utilize oak that's had a few beers over it already to pull out the flavor, you'll probably be able to leave it a lot longer. Using newer oak, you'd probably want to transfer onto oak, leave it for a couple months, then transfer back off.

You might want to consider going the extreme ABV route. Use a flavorful primary strain, and then use something along the lines of WLP099 as a secondary strain. Go for maybe 1.120 OG all malt, ferment it out as far as it'll go, add the secondary strain, and then keep feeding it additional amounts of corn sugar daily until it's at somewhere like 20-25% ABV.



Ok, I've never seen Dr. Who, so I had no idea what an Ood was. That wasn't the intent. Was going more for this:



Showing that Dr. Who apparently just plagiarized H. P. Lovecraft.

Also, not entirely unrelated suggestion:

A couple thoughts:

Spices fade fast, at least, on the multi-decade timescale. Some friends and I did, like, a six-year vertical of Anchor's spiced holiday ale a couple of years, and the older ones were trending towards "sweet brown ale that asked a cinnamon stick for its number once but got rejected" I know, I know, Anchor changes up the recipe every year, but they're all very clearly spiced ales when fresh, and after three or four years, you had to really try and pick up any spice at all.

We've also found the same with sours, on some verticals of Russian River's Consecration -- noticeable fading of sourness on the 2-3 year timescale, to the point where it's starting to no longer be a particularly sour beer after five.

Funk and sweetness tend to fade a little less, so, maybe move in one of those directions?

Qhrumphf said:

Showing that Dr. Who apparently just plagiarized H. P. Lovecraft.

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Don't worry, I was thinking cthulu when I saw that creepy thing.