This is why scientist do not brew world class beer, a brewers with a background in science can. Data can be interrupted many ways and miss the most important part. In the late 60's dad rented our house to a Boeing engineer and we moved. It had an irrigation system and he explained the "how to" of the watering system. Turn it on 3 times a week for so long. The engineer got out his slide rule and calculated the water time for 1 month and flooded the down hill neighbor. His data was correct. I would come to the conclusion that they did not follow the correct 80 flavors. This is a great starting pint for the next 80 flavors.
As an accountant to a businessman, I would proposed making ales. Sitting around while millions of dollars sit around in storage tanks. There is a lot of pressure financially to drop lagering times for profitability. This does make sense, till you taste the outcome.
As a brewer my take is the report is probably correct BUT follow your taste buds. With that said, my German style lagers all taste better on the 3rd month. Many of my lager friends will not open a keg till month 5. I just talked with one of my pro brewer hop clients he told me his Pilsners get better longer and the 5th month is so sexy he has to drink them. The homebrewer of the year in San Diego a few years back won with a classic German rauchbier that was over 1 year in lagering. We are friends and both Grand Master beer judges, he told me the beer kept getting better with time.
I taste it beers that I lager, the beer has all the same flavors after you get rid of the simply issues but the flavors meld together and the beer softens and looses the edges. Hop flavors morph, diminish, came back stronger and sometimes fade away. The young lagers are akin to a teenager that just grew 18", all elbows and knees. Give them a little more time and they are no longer awkward. In search of the perfect pint, you will never find a definitive qualifier on what is needed. It is just pure math where 1 + 1 makes 3, sometimes 4 and better 5. Science can not tell us the secrete sauce to make a great beer better, but we can taste it when we do. It is good to see that they are seeking how to make beer better, but as home brewers we all ready know that the yeast doesn't do much after the first month, and not a lot then when you drop the temp to near freezing.
Tonight I will celebrate brewing beyond my drinking ability with a 12 year old barley wine!
