Turning 25, can I make a beer that will last 25+ years?

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CarbonTom

CarbonTom

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So I'm about to turn 25 next week and have been itching to do a stong ale of some sorts for a while. And if this doesn't seem like a good land mark to start at, idk what is.

So is it possible to make a beer that will last super long (25+, hell even 50 yrs if I make enough?)

I know oxidation is the enemy, so I imagine I would want to cap and wax over the caps. Or should I shell out for a corking rig?

How high of a gravity should I aim for for such a long age period? I am thinking I would like to try and do a tripel or quad of some sorts, or would it have to be more like a barley wine? Would I have to worry about bottle bombs with higher carbonation levels of a Belgian?

I have yet to venture out into high gravity waters (above 1.080 that is), what should I change with my methods, if any?

Any advice from experienced agers here?
 
All depends on your definition of last... No matter what you make its going to oxidize regardless of waxing or corking (which still lets some oxygen and imparts different flavors in the finished product)

25 Years is a long time, and I would be more worried about at some point in the next 25 years, are you going to move? I mean honestly, It sounds great on paper, but if it was me and I wanted to celebrate my 25th... I would try doing somethign with the number 25 in it or potentially something that is interesting about your year of birth.

I don't think I could wait that long to drink something
 
Bowtiebrewery said:
All depends on your definition of last... No matter what you make its going to oxidize regardless of waxing or corking (which still lets some oxygen and imparts different flavors in the finished product)

25 Years is a long time, and I would be more worried about at some point in the next 25 years, are you going to move? I mean honestly, It sounds great on paper, but if it was me and I wanted to celebrate my 25th... I would try doing somethign with the number 25 in it or potentially something that is interesting about your year of birth.

I don't think I could wait that long to drink something
Click to expand...

Sorry I guess I left that part vague. I am thinking about something that I would open a bottle once a year and see how it ages.
 
I'd love to know someone's highly educated or experienced opinion. In my mind, it wouldn't hold up unless you got into 18% or higher, and I would think it would be undrinkable. My thoughts are that this is why scotch is aged for 12,15,18, etc and mellowed with the cask.

Edit. Well against my ignorant opinion, a little search of the Goog brought me to this article. Might at least give you a direction. I may give this a go in the future as well. Turns out I was totally wrong.

http://imbibemagazine.com/Cellaring-Beer
 
Well Technically yes... You could easily do that... Considering a typical 5 gallon batch nets 52 bottles... I would actually put them in 20 oz bombers instead... Makes it a lot nicer...

I'd do some sort of a BarleyWine, or maybe an Russian Imperial Stout. Some of the older beers I've had were all that style...
 
For beer, there's two routes you can go here and hope for good results. Big big big (Barleywine, RIS, Quad), or sour. Me personally, I would go sour. If you really, really feel like doing it right (and if I planned on investing 25 years into something I would do it right), I would buy a decent sized barrel (I'd go with a used wine barrel, not a barrel for spirits), and fill it with the sour style of your choice, and load it up with bugs. The next year, purchase another barrel, and repeat, but increase the batch size by maybe 30%. Draw off off enough from the first barrel that you top it up all the way with the extras from the new batch, so that you now have two full barrels, one of fresh wort more bugs, and one fairly young sour with a blend of fresh wort. Bottle the portion of the older stuff. Following year, purchase a third barrel, and repeat again, drawing off a portion of the oldest barrel, bottling it, topping it off from the second barrel, and then topping up second barrel and filling the third barrel with fresh wort, to give you three barrels of primarily different ages. And then if you want to add more barrels beyond that each year, do so, otherwise, each year you can brew a smaller batch (again maybe 30% of the barrel size), and each year draw from the oldest barrel and sequentially topping up with younger, topping up the youngest with the fresh wort. Just make sure that you're brewing enough extra to make up for the angel's share that each barrel will lose. That way, in 25 years, you have a blend of both young and very, very very old sour beer. Or you can do it simple, and just brew three Lambics over three years, and blend them. A well made Gueuze should be able to stand up to 25 years of aging if it's cellared properly.

Or you can go with mead, since it'll keep almost indefinitely too (again assuming properly made and properly handled/cellared). I've decided if my wife and I ever decide to have kids, I'm going to make a mead shortly before they're born, and age it long enough to give em the batch as a gift for their 21st birthday.

Or really, any beer style should be drinkable from a safety standpoint after 25 years, just not necessarily from a flavor standpoint. But if you brew it right and keep it just above freezing you'd be surprised how long beer can last.
 
Honestly, you need a big big beer, like a 12% barleywine with 100 IBU, and oaked. Probably be good in 2 years, great at 3, decent at 5 and suck at 10.

Maybe if you had a year round climate controlled wine cellar to store it in and never disturb it for a decade, but at 25 I have to think you're going to be moving and doing a lot in the next few decades.
 
I'd bet you could still have good beer with a little carbonation after 5. By 10 I would guess carbonation would be gone and oxidation would set in (even if you did everything right). By 25 you'd have no carbonation and would be drinking wet cardboard. This for a 12-14% beer which is about as strong as you can make with standard brewing techniques.

Yeah if you went through all of the high ABV tricks and had a beer that was 16-20%, I bet it would stand up. But thats a lot of time, effort, and expense to make a beer that really won't taste all that great even when it peaks.

I do have three beers that I will keep for as long as they are not oxidized, which I'm guessing will be about 5-7 years: a 12% RIS, a 12% Barleywine, and a 10.5% Dark Strong. May only drink one a year when I get down to a sixer.
 
In my opinion it is worth a try. I mean worst to come is you have spent 50$ and 4 hours of hard labour. Odds are that the beer will be good are thin however, having to taste a 25 year old beer doesn't happen everyday. Also it will be a huge milestone for OP to get to try it. Again, In my opinion.
 
I drank a sip (read drop) of an 80 year old Guinness and it was nasty. Oxygen will turn your beer into something very sherry like in 10 years. 25 is a long time. Even good wine, that is not a cellaring bottle, will be bad after 10 years.
 
Qhrumphf said:
For beer, there's two routes you can go here and hope for good results. Big big big (Barleywine, RIS, Quad), or sour. Me personally, I would go sour. If you really, really feel like doing it right (and if I planned on investing 25 years into something I would do it right),.....Just make sure that you're brewing enough extra to make up for the angel's share that each barrel will lose. That way, in 25 years, you have a blend of both young and very, very very old sour beer....
Click to expand...

Wow....This is an amazing idea. I'm not quite at the ability to do barrels, I really wish I could, but my fermenting space (and wallet) wont allow it. Maybe I'll do this at 30! Also I should have a better appreciation for sours by then and what I like, as I'm still really cutting my teeth with those.



Excellent advise thus far. I suppose I was being over ambitious with a 25-50 year forecast. But a 10 years isnt bad.

As far as cellaring space, my mom's house has a nice cool basement that I anticipate will still be in the family all those years from now. At the very least it will be a constant while I move around.


I appreciate all this input guys. I need to start working on a high grav recipe!
 
This is a pretty cool idea. If I were going to do a long-term project such as this, I'd do a mead bottled with a natural cork stopper, and plan proper storage environment. There is a lot of debate on natural cork vs. synthetic cork vs. screw on wine toppers, but if I were doing a multiple decade project, I'd go with the highest grade natural cork you can find, as that's tried and true, even if there is debate on other options that could possibly be better.
 
A hopped mead?

I wonder how old a bottle of Utopias would be drinkable. I think it might have a chance at 25 years, it's so huge in flavor as well as alcohol. There are clones out there of it.
 
Cyclman said:
A hopped mead?

I wonder how old a bottle of Utopias would be drinkable. I think it might have a chance at 25 years, it's so huge in flavor as well as alcohol. There are clones out there of it.
Click to expand...

Hop flavor doesn't last. That is why IPAs are best served soon after primary/secondary. A hopped anything would be terrible for this experiment.
 
Cyclman said:
Wouldn't hops add some preservative power, though?
Click to expand...

Hops have antimicrobial properties, but they aren't going to help an alcoholic beverage age well. They will just help protect against an infection, which isn't a huge concern when aging beer/wine. I think having a high ABV beer/wine is a much better protectant for long-term storage... As well as proper storage conditions (no light, temp controlled).
 
I have a few bottles of 2008 DFH 120 min and World Wide Stout... I opened a 2008 earlier this year and it was lovely... I accidentally dropped a bottle of 2010 WWS and drank a small bit of the remnants... Still not where I would want to drink it.
 
North Coasts Old Stock Ale holds up easily for 15 years, that is under 12%

SN Bigfoot is another great example of a lower-end big beer that can really last. Just saw some guy had one from 87.

Of course, WWS and beers of the like can go for decades. I collect a lot of Avery's bigger beers (14-17%) and they drink great, some of mine are closing in on 10 years old.
 
I have had a couple bottles of the 2008 vintage as well and they held up very nicely (I still have 2 left!), but the hop characteristic has all but gone.

I think I am going to go with a Beefier Bigfoot style barleywine. My current recipe is looking like:



Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 9.54 gal
Boil Time: 120 min
End of Boil Vol: 6.24 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 4.93 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage


Date: 02 Oct 2011
Brewer: Tom
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: Cooktop
Efficiency: 60.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.1 %
Taste Rating: 0.0



20 lbs Pale Malt - 2 Row (Schreier) (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 76.9 %
2 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 7.7 %
1 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 3.8 %
3 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 4 11.5 %
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 120.0 min Hop 5 14.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 120.0 min Hop 6 26.4 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 7 14.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 24.2 IBUs
1.25 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 45.0 min Hop 9 36.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 10 0.6 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 11 1.0 IBUs
0.75 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 12 1.0 IBUs
2.0 pkg San Diego Super Yeast (White Labs #WLP090) Yeast 13 - (really just going to be a 1/2 quart of slurry from an IIPA I racked a week ago)
1.0 pkg Super High Gravity Ale (White Labs #WLP099) [35.49 ml] Yeast 14 - going to do a 2 liter starter with this


Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.127 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.030 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 13.0 %
Bitterness: 117.9 IBUs
Est Color: 15.7 SRM


Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Sparge Water: 4.80 gal
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE


Total Grain Weight: 26 lbs
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps

Mash In Add 30.99 qt of water at 167.4 F 156.0 F 60 min
Sparge: Fly sparge with 4.80 gal water at 168.0 F



Im putting 60% efficiency since I have a feeling with a massive beer like this I will have lower efficiency. I subbed some DME since I only have a 10 gallon mash tun, and research shows Im looking at a 24 lb max capacity. I might even up it to 4 lb to be safe. Should I add rice hulls to prevent a stuck sparge?

I have a feeling with my current skillset 13% will be my optimal goal but I wouldnt be surprised if I get closer to 11% (which would still be an accomplishment for me tbh). As far as the ageability goes, I will just have to see how long she rides for.
 
oops, just saw the barley wine, which is what I suggested, I would estimate even lower efficiency though, maybe like 50%
 
Pitch a humungo starter for this, or better yet wash 3/4 of the yeast cake from a previous brew for more yeast.

Also consider oaking it. I oaked 1 gallon, soured 1 gallon, and bottled 3.5 gallons of the regular for a 12% barleywine. I liked the oaked the best, although the soured batch is still chugging and will be bottled within 6 months.
 
Before I attempted this myself, I would ensure I could do all closed transfers such that the beer doesn't get exposed to oxygen. From the moment I oxygenate and the yeast goes into the wort, the only gas to touch my beer would be co2. That would include using oxygen impermeable equipment such as glass or metal (silicone and rubber are air permeable), flushing transfer lines with co2, carbonation by co2 retention / spunding, co2 flushing the bottles and counterpressure filling, and using a wax seal over o2 absorbing caps. This all might sound like overkill, but these things are all reasonable and attainable and will help the final product. I have a friend who had a now-defunct brewery in the 90s who recently drank his last bottle of beer, over 20 years old. He recommended that it's not so much the recipe as the process and controls, although obviously some styles age better than others.

I liked this article on a home closed-transfer system that won't absolutely kill your budget, and there are many threads like it here on HBT http://www.homebrewing.com/articles/closed-transfer-system.php
 
It's good to hear some of the experiences with older 120's and especially the World Wide Stouts. I have bottles of the WWS from my kids birth years, and plan on aging them until they are 21...

Speaking of DFH, and the possibilities of aging...I have played around with corking the champagne style bombers that DFH uses for their bigger beers, and you can cork them, and still put on a standard cap. I would imagine that a corked *and* capped (with oxygen absorbing cap) bottle would provide a pretty superior seal. Hell, you could even then wax the top too...

Good luck with your project!

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that if you bottle condition a big beer, this will help with scrubbing some of the oxygen out of solution as the yeast will use it up in the conditioning process. It is also helpful to add some fresh yeast at bottling...I did this with a big quad I did a while back, and while it still took a good while to carbonate, it did so nicely. This beer is only just shy of 3 years old, but I can report back in a few years!
 
Last edited:
max384 said:
Hops have antimicrobial properties, but they aren't going to help an alcoholic beverage age well. They will just help protect against an infection, which isn't a huge concern when aging beer/wine. I think having a high ABV beer/wine is a much better protectant for long-term storage... As well as proper storage conditions (no light, temp controlled).
Click to expand...

What do hops do for a lambic then?

https://byo.com/stories/item/975-lambic-brewing
 
biochemedic said:
It's good to hear some of the experiences with older 120's and especially the World Wide Stouts. I have bottles of the WWS from my kids birth years, and plan on aging them until they are 21...

Speaking of DFH, and the possibilities of aging...I have played around with corking the champagne style bombers that DFH uses for their bigger beers, and you can cork them, and still put on a standard cap. I would imagine that a corked *and* capped (with oxygen absorbing cap) bottle would provide a pretty superior seal. Hell, you could even then wax the top too...

Good luck with your project!

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that if you bottle condition a big beer, this will help with scrubbing some of the oxygen out of solution as the yeast will use it up in the conditioning process. It is also helpful to add some fresh yeast at bottling...I did this with a big quad I did a while back, and while it still took a good while to carbonate, it did so nicely. This beer is only just shy of 3 years old, but I can report back in a few years!
Click to expand...


I like the idea of corking, capping, and waxing. I will likely do that. I have heard that using champagne yeast to bottle big beers is best. Is that true? When adding bottling yeast, do you just add it to the bottling bucket along with the priming sugar (its been years since i've bottled, so I kinda forget all this fun stuff).

----
I wonder if its a good idea, to transfer to a keg and then fill the bottles from the keg to keep excess O2 out. I've done this once before with already carbed beer, just by burping off excess pressure and filling at very very low psi. It wasn't for long term storage though...
 
Also I like the idea of adding oak to the fermenter as well, I have yet to try this. If you soak the oak in alcohol before, how much does it impart on the flavor? I do like peaty scotch, would that fair oddly with a barleywine? Has anyone tried this before?
 
I soaked 1.5 oz of oak cubes (used in wine making) in 3 oz of cheap scotch for two weeks. First I had done a 1 day rinse in 1 shot, that was thrown out (drank actually). The "rinse" scotch was pretty tannic. I threw both the cubes and the 3 oz of scotch into secondary for 7 weeks for my RIS. Turned out just right, maybe a tad too strong for the first 6 months, but the RIS didn't peak until about a year anyway so no issue there.

I added a higher proprtion of cubes for 3 weeks in my barleywine and that was also pretty good.

I picked up the scotch for awhile in my RIS, but eventually this pretty much faded into the background. So not much point in dropping big coin for top shelf scotch.

If you are going to age this puppy pretty much forever, I wouldn't be afraid to go 2 oz for 2 months in secondary. I would assume 5-8 oz of scotch would be fine also. Oak spirals are another great option. Oak chips are much different, and much less forgiving as the surface area is huge. If you do an extended period of time with oak, you'll want to fill the headspace with CO2 one way or another if your goal is to extended cellar the beer.
 
What if you put the bottles in an air tight container filled with CO2? Might be hard to maintain pressure for 25 years, but I would think it would eliminate the flavor destroying oxygenation. Sort of like a time capsule.
 
I second the idea of a sour(I'd choose Flemish red) or RIS.

Packaging plays a big role but you might as well pick a style that benefits or hides some of the oxidation flavors.
I've got some 2012 120min IPA that I open once a year and it seems to be doing ok. The second year all the hop flavors were gone and it wasn't really balanced but I just opened a bottle and it was way more balanced/mellow.

There are also oxygen absorbing crown caps out there you can use to help limit oxidation.
 
Humidity is a huge concern. Make sure it is maintained precisely throughout the aging. No matter what you do, you will get oxygen in and CO2 out. The pressure difference will make this happen. It will go right through the glass/wax/cap/whatever. It is a conservation law. Can't remember which one though...

Good luck with this. It is very ambitious. Even if it doesn't work, it is still worth the effort.

Make sure you upload this to hive-mind-collective-robot-overlord computers in 50 years!
 
Cyclman said:
What do hops do for a lambic then?

https://byo.com/stories/item/975-lambic-brewing
Click to expand...

My understanding is that the hops inhibit some of the nastier bugs early on and allow the desirable ones to gain a better foothold. Once you have alcohol (or alcohol plus acidity in Lambic) the antimicrobial properties of both trump the slight antimicrobial properties provided by hops.
 
TimFarAway said:
What if you put the bottles in an air tight container filled with CO2? Might be hard to maintain pressure for 25 years, but I would think it would eliminate the flavor destroying oxygenation. Sort of like a time capsule.
Click to expand...

Just had a thought based on this.

This might be totally stupid and not work at all, but what if you follow the packaging advice given on here already (02 caps, waxing, etc), then use a vacuum sealer around the bottle? Just pop the whole bottle in the bag and seal it up like you would anything else. It may or may not last 25 years but you could rebag it if you see it's getting filled with air.
 
1.080 isn't really that high. You should try a few practice beers in that range and then try to get to 1.125 or something respectable.

A lot of flavor is gonna drop out in that time so I would read up on ingredients that might sustain some flavor, perhaps some Lyles syrup or molasses.
 
solbes said:
I'd bet you could still have good beer with a little carbonation after 5. By 10 I would guess carbonation would be gone and oxidation would set in (even if you did everything right). By 25 you'd have no carbonation and would be drinking wet cardboard. This for a 12-14% beer which is about as strong as you can make with standard brewing techniques.

Yeah if you went through all of the high ABV tricks and had a beer that was 16-20%, I bet it would stand up. But thats a lot of time, effort, and expense to make a beer that really won't taste all that great even when it peaks.

I do have three beers that I will keep for as long as they are not oxidized, which I'm guessing will be about 5-7 years: a 12% RIS, a 12% Barleywine, and a 10.5% Dark Strong. May only drink one a year when I get down to a sixer.
Click to expand...

I don't know. One of my club members gets Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout every year. Cases and cases of it. Recently we opened some of the earlier ones. If I am remember right, we had 7 years of beer (could have been 6, might have been 8). They all had very similar levels of carbonation and the flavor deffinitely varied. My favorite was 4 years old, but the oldest was still very pleasant, but at a guess I'd say that the flavors were starting to "turn". It wouldn't surpise me if to ME it might not be pleasant in another 2-3 years.

It isn't exactly a light beer, but I've deffinitely seen heavier. I think three keys will be lots of hops, low storage temperature and fairly high alcohol (minimum 8% and >10% would be better). The club member only stored it in his partially sunken basement, so figure 60-70F storage temperature year round. Chemical reactions increase SIGNIFICANTLY as temperature changes. IIRC a change of 10F is sufficient to double reaction rate.

So storing at 40F or so could mean that after 16 years, you'd have the same impact as if you had stored at at 60F for 4 years. Even if my memory is wrong about chemical reaction rates, you are still looking at slowing them down a lot by cold storing it.

Me personally, I have some RIS at 10.5% and honestly I taste little difference over the last 6 months. I wouldn't personally try to make it 25 years (because I'd drink it all LONG before then. Not enough self control), but at some point I do want to try to make "special" batches where I am drinking them over the course of 2-4 years. I would with my RIS (a coffee oatmeal RIS), but I mad such a tiny batch, only 12-12oz and 2-22oz is all I managed out of it that I've drank all my 12-oz and all I have left are my 22oz. Those are getting saved for special occasions. I am thinking maybe Thanksgiving and New Years this year.
 
grathan said:
1.080 isn't really that high. You should try a few practice beers in that range and then try to get to 1.125 or something respectable.

A lot of flavor is gonna drop out in that time so I would read up on ingredients that might sustain some flavor, perhaps some Lyles syrup or molasses.
Click to expand...

My recipe is pushing 1.127 at 50% efficiency after bumping up the DME.



I like the idea of vacuum packing each bottle!!! I am definitely going to try that! I'm sure as long as the seal is good they will last a really really long time while cold and out of UV rays.
 

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