Aging & Fining Beer

[DrPaulsen]

Last week I cracked open two bottles of my Scottish Strong Ale. One of the bottles had been filled from the fermenter and received no special treatment -- i.e., it just sat on the basement shelf for 9 months of bottle conditioning. The other bottle was from a keg and had been fined with Gelatin & lagered for around 4 of the last 9 months (it was kept at basement temps for about 5 months, due to volume limitations in my serving freezer).

The difference in these two beers was amazing. The one that had been fined and lagered tasted fantastic (very clean, malty, with a rum-raisin character) and seemed like a blue ribbon beer. The other one tasted like run-of-the-mill dirty homebrew and hadn't really changed much over the course of 9 months. I found it fascinating to see how much of a difference the way a beer was aged impacted its flavor, aroma, etc. It would be even more interesting to see how a lagered, bottle conditioned beer compares. Maybe I'll run that experiment next time I brew the beer.

Anyway, I'll try to bring a bottle of each to the next meeting so anyone that is interested can taste them side by side.

[JimPotts]

I'm very interested.  Please bring them!

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 11:23 AM, DrPaulsen <brew-tech@crbeernuts.org (brew-tech@crbeernuts.org)> wrote:

Last week I cracked open two bottles of my Scottish Strong Ale. One of the bottles had been filled from the fermenter and received no special treatment -- i.e., it just sat on the basement shelf for 9 months of bottle conditioning. The other bottle was from a keg and had been fined with Gelatin & lagered for around 4 of the last 9 months (it was kept at basement temps for about 5 months, due to volume limitations in my serving freezer).

The difference in these two beers was amazing. The one that had been fined and lagered tasted fantastic (very clean, malty, with a rum-raisin character) and seemed like a blue ribbon beer. The other one tasted like run-of-the-mill dirty homebrew and hadn't really changed much over the course of 9 months. I found it fascinating to see how much of a difference the way a beer was aged impacted its flavor, aroma, etc. It would be even more interesting to see how a lagered, bottle conditioned beer compares. Maybe I'll run that experiment next time I brew the beer.

Anyway, I'll try to bring a bottle of each to the next meeting so anyone that is interested can taste them side by side.

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[hoboscratch]

Me too. I'd like to do a side by side of them.