Aged Beers Motherlode?

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alexdagrate

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Location
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A ghetto gas station in my town surprisingly has tons of imperial stouts and barleywines that have been aging in their fridge, some of them since 2009. I saw Deschutes Mirror Mirror Barleywine 2009 for $13, Deschutes Abyss Imperial Stout 2009 for $13, Goose Island Bourbon County Stout 2009 for $14, and several others. The prices were all about the normal retail for the area, which is a bit more than I try to pay (The local alberstons down the street has big craft beer for much cheaper and they take 10% off if you buy 4 22s at a time).

However, I think I'm sitting on a goldmine. Even though I could break the bank by buying up all of these aged brews, a fridge-aged 18 month old bottle of Abyss surely must be worth more than $13, right?

What do you think, should I go nuts and buy up a ton of these and start to age them? If I bought these and tried to sell them on craigslist or ebay, could I make a profit?

If nothing else, I'm excited to crack open a nicely aged bottle of The Abyss tonight!
 
If it were me, I wouldn't have left the store without a couple Abyss and BCS..

Buy them up!!!
 
It is rather interesting where you can end up finding older brews. I have randomly stumbled across things like this before too, and YES, you need to take advantage of this! If you don't, someone else will...the last time this happened to me it was 2009 Brooklyn Monster Barleywine...I bought two 6 packs, and when I went back, the others that had been there were gone too...(I was going to buy more!)
Don't worry about the resale value, you yourself are getting a pre-aged barleywine, and that in and of itself it golden!
 
Lookout! Ha ha...

Careful. My 2009 abyss were infected. Hopefully yours aren't. You will know if it has a funky odor and taste to it. Good luck!
 
Well there is a store I know of that has Stone brews dating back to 2006 including vertical epics, R IMP stouts and many more. Plus the guy sells them for 7.99. They are worth much more than that I have seen them on on ebay for 30-50$. And I could probably buy them and sell them and make some money but I would rather drink them. Im not sure one year old brews are worth much more.
 
Yeah, beware those '09 Deschutes beers - both the Mirror Mirror and the Abyss are potentially infected with Brett.
 
Darn it. So, if I open up one bottle of Abyss and it's NOT infected, can I assume that most of the other bottles at that shop are ALSO not infected?
 
I'm always a bit leery of "store-aged" beers as those beers have been sitting under fluorescent lights for god knows how long. Maybe it won't matter for your average darker Imperial Stout or Barleywine, but I think I'll pass on the 2007 vintage Chimay White.
 
Well, I picked up a bottle of Mirror Mirror and a bottle of Abyss.

I emailed Deschutes and they're no longer asking for the bottles to be shipped, just photos that show the unopened bottles with the dates on the labels. They even mentioned that some of the bottles are OK and you should try them after taking the photo.

The bottles from my ghetto mart are both definitely brett infected. I've had both of these beers at the deschutes pubs when they came out and at year-aged keg tastings at the Eastside Tavern in Olympia. The brett was obvious and NOT pleasant at all.

Each bottle was an immediate drain pour.

All was not lost, however. Deschutes will be sending me $12 for each '09 bottle, and I still have some bottles I bought in '09 that might not be infected. I'll let them age for another year or so and play russian roulette.

The GI bourbon county stout '09 was FANTASTIC. I didn't see any more bottles of it when I went back. However, there are some '08 Three Philosophers and lots of other beers that might have aged well.

Which begs the question, how do I tell the age of a beer that doesnt have distinctive markings? There's several bottles of Delirium Tremens but the year isnt stamped, just the month. If the years start at '09, does that mean it's a bottle of '09, or '08?

There's some Chimay in there as well. I saw some mold growing on the outside of some corks, is the beer inside safe? Is there some code to the stamps that seemed like random letters and numbers?

Because this store is so ghetto, the lighting is actually really dark, which is great, means less light spoilage.

Another example of how old the beer is in this place: there are bottles of Roots Brewing... they closed a year ago... and bottles of Laughing Buddha brewing... they changed their name to Trade Route in February '09.

While some of the imperial stouts, barleywines, trippels and quads are exciting to try aged, it's sad to see all the IPAs that say "Best Enjoyed by October 2009."
 
Went back to the motherlode and picked up an assortment of beligan and belgian style beers.

Avery The Reverend '08 - fantastic

Avery 15 Anniversary (100% Brett, weird spices) - gifted to my buddy

Lindeman's Cuvee Rene Gueze '05 - not a big fan of sours, but i shared it with a gueze fan and he said it was the most flavorful sour he's ever had

Rochefort 10 '08 - One of the best beers I've ever had.

Ommegang Three Philosophers '08 - very, very nice.

I'm definitely going back to this place and picking up some more. These big beers aged well in the cool and dark conditions of the gas station's walk-in cooler, so i think there's more good stuff in there waiting.
 
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