First and foremost, not every beer is ageworthy. While somewhat interesting things might happen in the cellar to a can of Melbourne Bitter or a bottle of VB (maybe?!), most brews are best drunk within a shorter shelf life with freshness on hand.
Beers for the cellar are typically of a different ilk. For the careful selector there’s reward in matured beer that delivers a similar satisfaction to cellared wine. Beer does evolve with time and can open up an array of complex and new aromas, flavours and texture. Trying a cellar-worthy beer in its vigorous youth and seeing how it matures over years is an attractive reward for those with patience.
Of course, like wine, bad beer will not become good beer with ageing. The right beers develop complexity and richness in a similar trajectory to cellar-worthy wines. Time in cellar for beer can yield a softness and savouriness in texture and flavours, may assist with development of nutty/sweet spice/porty secondary characters, typically relax the influence of alcohol, and contribute to an overall mellowing of the intensity of the brew style.
In terms of best beer styles for cellaring there seems to be no hard rules, but generally selecting beers that are higher in alcohol (above 6 per cent) and that are lower in overt hop influence is a good start. Typically, stouts, dark ales, lambic beers, barrel-aged beers, porters, higher alcohol lager or ales, bottle conditioned beers, wild ferment beers, sour beers and proper fruit beers seem to all work well in terms of cellaring. I tend to lean into the lambic and sour beers, often referred to as ‘grain wines’ – the living bacteria continue to work and gently soften sourness and pull through more savoury characters and complexity, yet acidity remains refreshing and high.
Best yet, wine cellars are the perfect place for maturing beers. Like wine, cellaring beer requires even and cool-ish temperature, stable levels of humidity and appropriate darkness to ensure the ageing process happens without fault. As you might with wine cellars, trying one beer now, and leaving a few bottles for one, three and five years (even 10 years) time, seems ideal practice.
Three ageworthy beers to add to your cellar
Moo Brew Barrel-Aged Stout 2022, Tasmania
8% alc. / Drink 2030 / RRP $14
The beer spends 12 months in French and American oak. It’s velvety with all the dark chocolate and coffee going on with licks of coconut and sweet spice. Expect more spice and raisin, fig and date characters with age.
Coopers Brewery Vintage Ale 2024, South Australia
7.5% alc. / Drink 2038 / RRP $8
The first beer I ever cellared was one of Coopers’ vintage ales, and it works a treat, gaining depth of woody spices, cherry and mocha characters while retaining the herbal lift of the original release – I drank one at over a decade old recently and was blown away.
Two Metre Tall Tasmanian Wild Ale, Tasmania
5.5% alc. / Drink 2028 / RRP $12
A spontaneous wild-ferment beer, blended across four years of brewing and barrels then bottle conditioned. Tart and pleasingly sour-bitter, it feels wildly complex and uplifting. Cellar time should soften the beer, while it gains nutty savouriness and sweet herbal elements.
This article first appeared in issue #74 of Halliday magazine. Become a member to receive four issues per year, digital access to over 180,000 tasting notes from 4000+ wineries and distilleries, plus other member benefits.
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