Need advice on big beer w/ big hops

[santacruzbob]

Hello, we just brewed this beer on 9/9/09

13lbs pale liquid malt extract
3lb 2 row
.75lb crystal 60L
3oz chinook @ 60min
1oz chinook @ 15min
1.5oz pearl @ 15min
1.5oz pearl @ 7min
2oz cascade dry hop
2gal of WLP099 yeast starter
1.110 OG

as you can see it has 9 ounces of hops in it. Our intention was to age this beer for ~13 months and open it on 10/10/10 but I'm wondering if we're going to lose all of the nice hoppy flavor in the beer. We're rather new brewers (made abour 40 gallons prior) and haven't made any big beers before.. what should we do?

 

[JOHN51277]

You are going to lose alot of the aroma hops with aging that long. Why not enjoy it sooner than that? Like say 2 mos?

 

[david_42]

You will lose the hop aroma. My recommendation would be to purchase a cornie keg and bulk condition it. Bottle it about 3 weeks before you want to start drinking it. Save the dry hops until the week before you bottle.

 

[santacruzbob]

JOHN,

I don't think the beer will be palatable in 2 months. It tastes pretty bad right now.

david,

is there any reason we couldn't leave it in a carboy the whole time? We haven't gotten into kegging our own beer yet so we don't have any of the equipment.

 

[santacruzbob]

hmm, on a side note.. this beer seems to be stuck at about 1.053. we previously used the wlp099 on some 1.081 and it got down to 1.010.. I was hoping for similar attenuation with this wort but it's been stuck for 2 days and I'm not sure what to do!

 

[david_42]

Kegs are very good for long-term storage. They are cheap, light-proof, oxygen-proof and unbreakable. Doesn't matter if you have the rest of the gear, just rack to your bottling bucket and prime.

A beer than big is going to take a long time to finish. My last barleywine (Nov. 2005) the OG was 1.102, hit 1.045 at three weeks and it took two months to reach 1.028. It's now at 1.024.