Vintage Beer: A Taster's Guide to Brews That Improve over Time by Dawson

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myerstyson

myerstyson

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I'll start!

I love this book. This book led me to actually cellaring a few of the beers I love. I brought many of them with me to Kyrgyzstan. My favorite, which I cannot wait to try, is a 2007 Samiclaus.

What does this have to do with homebrewing? This book has some wonderful tips for how to keep/cellar beers. Especially important is tips on which brews last longer in cellars. Big gravity beers for instance.

And, a big thank you to @Austin for this forum!
 
That book does look neat.

Just looking at the amazon preview he talks about how high alpha hops break down into wet cardboard flavor. This is something I struggled with for the past 2 years thinking I had to battle oxidation.

Then Dawson mentions how high beta acid hops break down over time and release new flavors into the beer.

I wonder if he expands on these topics more than just the paragraph on p.29 in the book? Like perhaps mentioning specific hop varieties or characteristics that tend to change over time..
 
grathan said:
That book does look neat.

Just looking at the amazon preview he talks about how high alpha hops break down into wet cardboard flavor. This is something I struggled with for the past 2 years thinking I had to battle oxidation.

Then Dawson mentions how high beta acid hops break down over time and release new flavors into the beer.

I wonder if he expands on these topics more than just the paragraph on p.29 in the book? Like perhaps mentioning specific hop varieties or characteristics that tend to change over time..
Click to expand...

So by using low alpha hops we can expand the shelf life of our beer? Even of we brew highly hopped beer?
 
You don't make sense. Wouldn't adding more hops equal adding more alpha acid?
 
grathan said:
You don't make sense. Wouldn't adding more hops equal adding more alpha acid?
Click to expand...

I thought your post means that 1oz of 15% alpha acid hop (high alpha hop) gets more cardboardy than 3oz of 5% alpha acid hop (low alpha hop)
 
Ahh, I am not sure. My post was more of a question wondering something similar.

The author refers to the chemical as "trans-2-nonenal" which seems to form in beer as it ages.


amino acid precursors generated by the initial wort boil can release trans-2-nonenal due to changes in beer pH
Click to expand...

It also seems that oxygen in the bottle/ keg is also responsible for the chemical.



Here is an interesting read on staling.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2006.tb00705.x/pdf

It suggests that trans-2-nonenal levels have a direct effect on staleness perception. Interesting that that the late hopped beer decreased levels of the aldehyde at the day 14 mark.


The study is somewhat dated though (2006). So hopefully a decent book comes along that covers beer staling from a homebrewer's perspective with more up to date information on things like hot side aeration, oxidized beta acid, and oxidized malliard malts.






But to steer back to the book at hand and not turn the thread into a discussion of oxidation. It does say that Rule #1 is that aged beer should have %8 ABV.

That means that you don't even taste oxidation. I can attest to that because the only beer I've brewed that strong in the past 3 years has sat warm in a garage with no co2 on it (keg top leaked unbeknownst to me) for at least 1 of those years and it is still delicious!
 
grathan said:
Ahh, I am not sure. My post was more of a question wondering something similar.

The author refers to the chemical as "trans-2-nonenal" which seems to form in beer as it ages.




It also seems that oxygen in the bottle/ keg is also responsible for the chemical.



Here is an interesting read on staling.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2006.tb00705.x/pdf

It suggests that trans-2-nonenal levels have a direct effect on staleness perception. Interesting that that the late hopped beer decreased levels of the aldehyde at the day 14 mark.


The study is somewhat dated though (2006). So hopefully a decent book comes along that covers beer staling from a homebrewer's perspective with more up to date information on things like hot side aeration, oxidized beta acid, and oxidized malliard malts.






But to steer back to the book at hand and not turn the thread into a discussion of oxidation. It does say that Rule #1 is that aged beer should have %8 ABV.

That means that you don't even taste oxidation. I can attest to that because the only beer I've brewed that strong in the past 3 years has sat warm in a garage with no co2 on it (keg top leaked unbeknownst to me) for at least 1 of those years and it is still delicious!
Click to expand...

Once i brewed a 9-10%ish DIPA, 100IBU, dryhops, it killed it's yeast in the primary so it failed to carbonate in the bottle and it was pretty sherry like and a bit cardboardy after 6+ months in the bottle.

Btw it seems like almost every other "industry" have something against oxidation (winemakers use metabisulfite, non alcoholic beverages use things like ascorbic acid etc.) except brewers. I think this discussion would worth a thread. Like why don't we put wine sulfur in our beer or other antioxidants.
 
That's interesting. I was reading about sodium bisulfate just this morning. It can lead to sulfur taste in beer if too much is used. Mitch Steele's IPA book says early brewers used lime bisulfate.

I guess the common perception is that yeast eats any oxygen. Or perhaps that home brewers can keep their beer cold at all times (except for bottle priming) and that retards the staling. I would guess your IPA saw some warm time.
 
It is definitely a good book. It does break down a lot of the science of flavors and how they break down over time. Hop wise high beta acids and low alpha is bad as stated above. It also discusses chemistry of esters and phenols and such.

I read it a few months ago and started my new collection immediately after. It's funny I just pulled the book back out and I have several beers hat I bought based on the criteria and turns out I got several mentioned by name in the book!

I definitely recommend the read.
 
Drank a homebrew that was over 5 years old yesterday. My beers weren't so great back then which explains why I still have some around.

But I noticed a couple interesting things. Tannins and autolysis remain relevant as flavors years out. The tannins mellowed quite a bit, but provided a spicy type flavor. Kind of like ginger. And the autolysis provided some interesting flavor as well. tough to describe, but sort of dank sour, not dominating at all. Also interesting is the persistance of water chemistry flavor years later. The sodium and bicarbonate were still in suspension after all those years and were easily detectable.

Not sure if the book covered these things, as I don't see any mention in the the table of contents.
 

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