pericles
Well-Known Member
I guess my big objection to the "patience" argument is that it has no clear end point. None of the patience-people ever says "four weeks is the perfect amount of time, no longer, no shorter." Instead, they say "four weeks MINIMUM." One poster on this site even told me that his favorite beers are the IPAs that he aged for three years before drinking.
I suppose that makes sense if you believe that beer only ever gets better with timebut most people don't. On the contrary, every craft-beer owner is manic about getting old kegs and bottles off the shelves, and even MBC have vigorous quality control programs that pull older cases out of gas-stations and grocery stores across the country after just a few weeks.
If your palette is such that you really enjoy three year old IPAs, then more power to you: grab some bottles, throw 'em in a basement, and forget about 'em! But don't confuse new brewers with your idiosyncratic tastes.
I suppose that makes sense if you believe that beer only ever gets better with timebut most people don't. On the contrary, every craft-beer owner is manic about getting old kegs and bottles off the shelves, and even MBC have vigorous quality control programs that pull older cases out of gas-stations and grocery stores across the country after just a few weeks.
If your palette is such that you really enjoy three year old IPAs, then more power to you: grab some bottles, throw 'em in a basement, and forget about 'em! But don't confuse new brewers with your idiosyncratic tastes.