My daughter will be 1 in a few months. I would like to brew a beer on her birthday and age it until she is 16 and Crack it open on her birthday. Has anyone aged a beer this l ok no before and give advice. I'm sure it should be a barley wine and probably wax the tops after capping. Again any recipes and advice would be great.
aging many years -question
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DaNewf
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Where do you live that 16 is the legal drinking age?
ruger988
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Just about anyhere in Europe... North America blows.
Barleywine/sour would be your best bet. Could always but a nice bottle of Pappy or something to sit on for 16 years, brew something on her 10th maybe to age until her 16th...?
Barleywine/sour would be your best bet. Could always but a nice bottle of Pappy or something to sit on for 16 years, brew something on her 10th maybe to age until her 16th...?
Who said that the 16 year old gets to sample the beer?
madscientist451
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I've heard of beer being ok after 9-10 years; the beer was kept refrigerated the whole time and I think it was a sour, maybe a Flander's Red. I'm thinking the higher the alcohol the better, and hops have preservative qualities, so I'm thinking of a high alcohol IPA, don't know if I'd want to do a sour for 16 years.
Yeah, maybe I will go with a mead instead.
Warthaug
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Looks like you got every reply but the one you are looking for. Designing a beer that can age for 16 years is quite a challenge. About the only style of beer intended for this kind of aging are English barley wines; few other styles will improve past 5 years. But even with a barley wine you will be challenged to get it to age 16 years. Brewing a beer that stands up for that length of time is challenging, but there are a number of things you can do to give it your best shot:
Avoiding oxidation is your main challenge, but there are a number of things you can do:
Good luck!
Bryan
- Use quality ingredients. Good malts and hops are needed.
- Use high-beta acids hops - you're looking for strains with roughly equal amounts of alpha versus beta acids. Alpha acids will oxidize to stale tasting compounds; beta acids hold up longer.
- Avoid adding too many dark malts - these will acidify the beer, which can increase yeast autolysis over time.
- Aim for a high alcohol content: 10%/vol or higher.
- Use the best fermentation conditions you can - high pitch rates, keep temperatures under control, etc - a good start gives you the best chance of a "long life"
- Beers will tend to thin out over time. To overcome this, make sure you are brewing a beer with a good level of residual sugars - i.e. a final gravity of 1.015 or higher (preferably in the 1.020 range). This residual body needs to be sugars -avoid relying on wheat or other malts which build body through providing protein - they'll drop out over time leaving the beer thin.
- Consider oaking your beer - oak flavours hold up very well over time.
- The biggest enemy will be oxidation. Oxidation provides some of the fantastic flavours that aging beers develop, but oxidation is also what eventually kills the beer. For 10+ years of aging you will want to do whatever you can to limit oxidation, as this is the factor that will limit the lifespan of your beer.
Avoiding oxidation is your main challenge, but there are a number of things you can do:
- Use high-quality closures; grolsh-type bottles and screw tops don't seal well enough for long-term aging. Crown caps on pop-top bottles or corks work best - corks requiring a bit more maintenance and care.
- Don't filter your beer - the live yeast will help to eat up some of the oxygen.
- Purge any secondary fermenters, kegs, bottles, etc with CO2 before transferring beer into them; you need O2 in he primary for fermentation, but after that keep the beer under CO2.
- Put the beer into larger bottles - the smaller headspace:beer volume ratio means there is less O2 per volume of beer.
- Make sure crown caps are sealed as tightly as possible
- Wax closures to further limit diffusion of air through the caps gasket
- Store bottles upright, in a box, in an area not overly humid or dry, and keep them cool - below fermentation temperatures at a minimum, but the lower you go the more you slow oxidation and thus lengthen ageing.
Good luck!
Bryan
DaNewf
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Who said it would be for her?
Well it just seems kind of pointless and arbitrary otherwise.
Dad: Happy Birthday honey! I'm going to celebrate your 16th birthday by drinking a 15 year old bottle of beer!
Daugther: Uh.... Thanks? Wait, why didn't you drink a 15 year old beer on my 15th birthday?
Dad: Because the beer was only 14 years old on your 15th birthday. That's just crazy talk!
Daugther:
sfish
Well-Known Member
Cleaned out some garage area the other night and found, I knew it was there, some beer I made back over 18 years ago. The last case I made before my hiatus, which I started back up again brewing about a 14 months ago. I never drank it because in the case there were few bottle bombs and it made a mess. So I basiclly hid it on a back shelf back then because I though it was bad and did not have the heart to trash it.
If I recall it was to be a strong British Bitters with coffee added. So Tuesday stuck on in the fridge mainly because I am out of home brew. First time in a year. Opened it late last night. The top fizzed... poured it into a glass .. creamy frothy dark head. The first sip was wow best beer I ever drank... creamy sheery like tast that lingered in the mouth, complex dark caramel toffee flavors Not any cardboad which I was expecting, not a bit..
Yes you can make a beer and age for 16 years.
sfish
