Spice Beer & Kegging

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cactusgarrett

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I listened to Jamil's past show on spiced beer and i plan on turning out a pumpkin ale soon. Jamil mentioned that over time spice beers can actually have the spices settle out of the beer. And because of this, the beer should actually be treated along the lines of a wheat - basically something that should be consumed "green" or sooner than later.

Has anyone experienced this with kegging (or at all)? How long does it take to notice a perceptable difference, given a "typical" spice load? Could a keg theoretically be inverted - similar to a hefe - to resuspend the spices?
Mod edit - I've moved this to a more relevant forum.
It is not specific to AG brewing.
 
I kegged my pumpkin spice beer after letting it age for 8 weeks, it took a month to drink it, and there was no noticeable loss of the spice flavor.
 
The spices might settle out, but the alcohol in the beer will also have extracted some flavor from them, so it shouldn't lose the spice character entirely.

As to whether or not you can invert a keg, I suppose that's more a question for people who keg, and I don't. I imagine it would be pretty difficult, full kegs are pretty heavy.
 
I just didn't know if equating it with a hefe was worthwhile. Some commercial hefe kegs are actually shipped inverted to keep the beer turbid and the yeast suspended. But, i'm not worried about 5gal hanging around longer than a month. Thanks, guys.
 
As a follow up-- I was listening to Christmas Spiced Beer this morning.

Jon Plise asked this very type of question. Jamil's Response was something the lines of:

If you are brewing it to drink it right away, season it to taste exactly how you want it to taste in the next few months. If you want it to last 2 or 3 years, spice it bigger-- the spices WILL die down w/ time-- just like a lot of hop characteristics.
 
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