Confused about homebrew getting better with age vs purchased beer getting worse

[Xpertskir]

I am new to home brewing but an "accomplished" beer drinker. I have seen so many threads that say to have patience with your home brew, the first bottle will be the worst, last the best...ect. This is confusing to me as with my purchased beer, especially hoppy beers(but generally any beer not friendly with cellaring) time brings on nothing but a noticeable decline in flavor over time.

Can someone explain this paradox? I have theories but my post is already bordering on too long.

Also, I am/will be kegging, is this more relevant to bottlers.

 

[jkendrick]

I'm new to homebrewing, but I think this is repeated often to beginners as a rule of thumb because so many of us are impatient to try the first beers. I think waiting is relative. Your purchased hoppy beers have already been conditioned and hence fresher tends to be "better." I put better in quotes because that too can be relative. I find DFH 120 undrinkable fresh. you need to two to three weeks in the bottle, but then I'd probably drink IPAs fresh. Also, I've read on this forum that more age can help to cover up many of the mistakes us rookies make. So even if you lose some hoppiness, you may like the beer more as it ages.

Edit: in fact I asked a related question in another thread. The best Pliny the Elder I've ever had as exactly two weeks after the bottled on date. Most here would, I think, say two weeks in the bottle is not enough time.

 

[brettwasbtd]

Most beers require a period of conditioning time between the end of fermentation and the time of (ideal) consumption. There are many factors at play here (Style, gravity, yeast pitching rate and health, ferm temp, condition temp, bottle vs keg, lager vs ale) that will affect the time it will take a beer to reach its ideal consumption time. Often the yeast in homebrewed beers allows for a longer shelf life (in some styles) than a commercial example that is filtered. For this reason it also can take a little longer for the yeast to drop out, resulting in some yeast character in a beer where none is desired. Cold conditioning in a fridge can speed up yeast flocculation and over time resulting a "tastier" beer. As you mentioned, certain styles like IPAs and hefes are best consumed quickly and this paradox may no apply

I have also found that if I dont have appropriate levels and health of yeast, it will take longer for them to clean up and produce a tastier beer. Hope this helps and makes sense. Let me know if it doesnt!

 

[mmonacel]

Yep - typically a newly fermented beer takes a few weeks to really have the flavors meld and reach their peak. It all depends on the beer of course. A barleywine could be 6 months to a year to start really tasting good. My IPAs usually start hitting their stride about 3 weeks after reaching FG / racking to keg. By the time you're done your dry hop schedule it's ready to roll. That's not to say they don't taste good a week in (given you had a good fermentation, etc.), but almost all beers (of a relatively normal gravity) turn a corner a few weeks in and really start to come together.

 

[Xpertskir]

I understand that brewers have their beer bottled and conditioning for a while before allowing us to purchase, but some of the posts on here are talking about months(6+ in some threads) of waiting post fermenting and I know that we are drinking beer from breweries at their supposed peak at <2 months from being brewed and i think that's being generous, its probably usually close to a month.

Are we making that many more mistakes that the yeasties need to fix in that time that the amount of flavor loss from the ingredients is just far less appreciable than the gain of decreasing "off" flavors.

FYI, this is not to say I'm going to be impatient or looking for reasons to be. In fact I have just purchased more primaries and am about to purchase more kegs to help alleviate my motivation for impatience.

 

[Xpertskir]

Most beers require a period of conditioning time between the end of fermentation and the time of (ideal) consumption. There are many factors at play here (Style, gravity, yeast pitching rate and health, ferm temp, condition temp, bottle vs keg, lager vs ale) that will affect the time it will take a beer to reach its ideal consumption time. Often the yeast in homebrewed beers allows for a longer shelf life (in some styles) than a commercial example that is filtered. For this reason it also can take a little longer for the yeast to drop out, resulting in some yeast character in a beer where none is desired. Cold conditioning in a fridge can speed up yeast flocculation and over time resulting a "tastier" beer. As you mentioned, certain styles like IPAs and hefes are best consumed quickly and this paradox may no apply

I have also found that if I dont have appropriate levels and health of yeast, it will take longer for them to clean up and produce a tastier beer. Hope this helps and makes sense. Let me know if it doesnt!

Ah, this is making a lot of sense, and the fact that our beers are more "alive" after kegging or bottling was something else I was thinking about due to the lack of filtering and pasteurization(BTW that louis guy was a dick, he ruined milk and cheese, among other things). Cold crashing, and then cold conditioning are definitely in my future. My first brew is at 2~weeks in the primary, I'm dryhopping at 3 weeks for 7 days, cold crashing for 3 days, then kegging with a hybrid of the quick/set and forget method.

 

[Bensiff]

There are a few reasons which have been gone over, yeast will clear out fermentation byproducts smoothing out the character of a beer. As well, yeast isn't the flavor you are looking for in a beer and it takes a long time to come out of solution so as the beer clears it gets better. Finally, while a beer will carb in a week, it can take a few months for the CO2 to truly saturate the solution so the beer gets the proper character from the carbonation. However, homebrew too has its peak and starts getting nasty if it ages too long.

 

[xygorn]

I think the simple answer is that beer changes with time. Depending on what flavors you are aiming for in your beer, aging will bring you closer or further from your target.

Some compounds are metabolized by yeast, such as Acetaldehyde and diacetyl. Some compounds settle out (e.g. yeast bodies). Some compounds are likely oxidized or reduced without the activity of the yeast. A number of threads here go into more detail.

If you want a hoppy beer, or a wheat beer with strong banana flavors, you are better off drinking it young, as these flavors diminish over time. If you want less burn in a higher alcohol beer, you are better off drinking it aged.

Commercial beers with high volume are likely being designed so that they are at their intended flavor fairly soon after hitting retail. The longer you leave them, the further they depart from the intended flavor.

 

[stratslinger]

Yeah, you're 99% of the way there...

Hoppy beers, in general, are better young, just because that hop character can diminish - ofter rather quickly.

Wheat beers can be drunk young - I'm not really sure that the esters and phenols that are common to wheat beers will age out though. But wheat beers tend to hit their peak a lot more quickly than other beers.

Big malt bombs, however, as long as they're not filtered, tend to benefit from aging. Homebrew, in general, tends to fall into this category regardless of gravity. But there are lots of commercial examples of higher gravity, bottle conditioned beers that can benefit from some amount of aging. I think it might have been a recent issue of BYO that featured an article on several beers that were good candidates for cellaring.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Sometimes homebrew improves with age because the yeast are cleaning up our technical defects. Sometimes the beer just benefits from some age allowing the yeast to settle out and getting a clearer beer.

As pointed out above many times, some styles are best drank young; when you see people talking about 6+ months they are usually high ABV beers or beers where the brewer used too much of an ingredient (e.g. smoke, chiles) and it needs time to mellow. High ABV beers can benefit from a lagering period or just the passage of time (like wine). Many high ABV beers from breweries are lagered or aged at ambient temperatures before they go out to distribution.

I don't find commercial beer declines as quickly when it is a bottle conditioned beer but beers that are pasteurized and filtered tend to have a shorter shelf life. Some of that has to do with the destructive power of heating the beer during pasteurization.