A pleasant surprise.

[Stormcrow]

I brewed an all Chinook pale ale back in September of last year. First four bottles or so were great; good nose, plenty of hop presence, etc. It wasn't an IPA, but had good hop character.

The rest of the batch was good, but just kinda "meh", so I chalked it up to oxygen degrading the hop character too quickly and soldiered on.

As new batches of my darker winter brews came and went, i wound up having one of these Chinook PA bottles just kind of hanging out in the fridge. Today i lit the grill and decided to go ahead and pop open that last straggler. Good grief! It might have been the best bottle of the whole batch. I could definitely smell and taste the hops, and more so than in the previous bottles it seemed.

Has anyone had something like this happen? I know patience is a virtue for certain styles, but i thought hoppiness was the first thing to go, especially with a beer as old as that one. Did i coincidentally save the freakishly best bottle? Or is my palate just burnt out on copious amounts of porter and overreacting to a bland beer of a different style? I wouldn't think so, but who knows?

Anyway, just a pleasant surprise, and one that made me wonder if this is more common than i think.

 

[seatazzz]

Was it your very last bottle of the batch? If so, THAT'S why. At least that's been my experience. It's a karma thing. I keg, but the last pint out of the keg is always the best.

 

[bracconiere]

Was it your very last bottle of the batch? If so, THAT'S why. At least that's been my experience. It's a karma thing. I keg, but the last pint out of the keg is always the best.

if it's the last bottle you need more motivation to brew more! ya'weh, or the highway! lol

 

[Stormcrow]

It was the very last bottle of that pale ale. I've still got quite a few of my last porter, but I'm getting tired of it. Just bottled a batch of hoppy amber today. The taste of the hydrometer sample has me pretty excited. This is my first batch using Amarillo and Simcoe.

 

[seatazzz]

It was the very last bottle of that pale ale. I've still got quite a few of my last porter, but I'm getting tired of it. Just bottled a batch of hoppy amber today. The taste of the hydrometer sample has me pretty excited. This is my first batch using Amarillo and Simcoe.

This is exactly why I keg; back when I was bottling I got so tired of the current batch, but had to drink it all in order to have enough empty bottles for the next one, or go buy more! Now I can pull just what I want to drink and don't feel guilty about it...well, maybe a little.

 

[Stormcrow]

This is exactly why I keg; back when I was bottling I got so tired of the current batch, but had to drink it all in order to have enough empty bottles for the next one, or go buy more! Now I can pull just what I want to drink and don't feel guilty about it...well, maybe a little.

I hear you. I'm looking forward to getting into kegging, but I've got plenty bottles for now, and enough fridge room to let some hang out in there for awhile. Good thing too. My porter isn't bad, but I'm ready to give it a break!

 

[Stormcrow]

In the spirit of "pleasant surprises, " I've got another little anecdote to share. Last summer I made a pale ale that just didn't really turn out for some reason. Hard to say exactly what was wrong with it, but i didn't really care for it. It also had a weird, almost metallic aftertaste.

I accidentally discovered though that if I drank that beer on the deck and let it warm up in direct sunlight for a few minutes, it completely transformed into something I really enjoyed. Perhaps I'm one of those tasters that is super sensitive to "light-struck" flavors, but I swear that is exactly what changed in that beer. It quickly developed a very slight skunky flavor that just somehow offset whatever was wrong beforehand.

I wound up doing several tasting experiments where I would drink one of those beers in the house out of the sun, and later try another one after the glass sat outside in direct sunlight for a short time. They tasted completely different, and the light- struck was always better IMO, to the point that I've considered brewing that recipe again and storing it in green bottles.

Probably a rare case study, (avoiding skunkiness is usually a no brainer) but if you ever wind up with a beer you don't care for, you might give that a shot and see what happens.

 

[BrewZer]

This is exactly why I keg; back when I was bottling I got so tired of the current batch, but had to drink it all in order to have enough empty bottles for the next one, or go buy more! Now I can pull just what I want to drink and don't feel guilty about it...well, maybe a little.

The trick is to have enough bottles on hand for 3 batches. It helps if you have thirsty relatives who like Sam Adams or one of the other non-screw-cap brews...

 

[Stormcrow]

The trick is to have enough bottles on hand for 3 batches. It helps if you have thirsty relatives who like Sam Adams or one of the other non-screw-cap brews...

Yep. I get a slew of bottles around the holidays when the Sam Adams winter variety pack comes out. My friends and I buy that one annually.

 

[JPDosey]

Ive had similar experiences. Some beers have been left in the fridge, tucked in the corner, maybe for months. When you get around to drinking them,
they are amazing.