Barleywine - Will it last 20 years?

[Haputanlas]

This is not speaking from experience. However, I would probably buy a used Corny keg, PBW it, sanitize, rack, pressurize, and purge Oxygen (instead of bottles). This way I could be pretty certain that I've purged all oxygen as well feeling pretty certain that the Keg was completely clean as well.

You would still be able to bury it and would also be very easy to take samples from (without having to waste a full beer on every sample).

Reconditioned cornies go for $30-$40 and worth a 20 year investment (IMO).

 

[old_tx_kbb]

Hap.... I meant to age it in a keg....not a plastic bottle. Use the carbonator on a sample taken from the keg and carbonate it in the plastic bottle.

 

[Haputanlas]

Hap.... I meant to age it in a keg....not a plastic bottle. Use the carbonator on a sample taken from the keg and carbonate it in the plastic bottle.

Yeah, I kinda interpreted your message incorrectly. I agree with your thoughts completely. I'd feel much better aging in a keg rather than bottles.

 

[ericd]

Get a bottle of utopias and let it age for 20 years? Maybe you could put it in a tiny little barrel?

 

[Locus415]

I am continuing my research to do the doble doble as well. First kid on the way any day now. I really would prefer to bottle as I like the idea of having a sample each year on the way up to 21. But I think somewhere around 17 to 18, it is gonna be hard to hide my reactions to tasting the sample from the not so little anymore nipper. If you knew your dad had a stash of 17 year old barley wine that he brags about at least once a year, every year you have been alive; try to tell me you wouldn't be ripping the house apart and digging up the yard to find it!

So, I am doing a 20# MO + 1.5#Biscuit + .5# Special B split to two 11# grists and doble doble mashed. Pitching with a washed cake of WLP500 trappist. Bottling in (20) twelve oz. bottles with 02 caps, one for each year to sample, and the rest in champagne bottles, corked and wired.

Now... where to dig that hole?

 

[NineMilBill]

Zombie thread! But on a 20 year aging process, this is to be expected.

I agree with runningweird that if you're going to the trouble of brewing an ultra-long aging beer, you might as well make a big mead too. I'm thinking a Bochet? Or whatever - mead's amazing regardless.