BetterBeerBlog

In the weeks leading up to SF Beer Week, I was helping to plan several events for the South Bay. One of the events was a beer dinner. Several of us converged upon the home of Michael and Diane, one of the principle organizers of the event, for a dry run of the planned menu. Not have visited their home before, I was surprised to see the beers they had on their display shelves. In fact, display shelves is putting things mildly as they have several bookcases worth of beer. Many of the beers were rare for our area if not unavailable altogether. In some instances, there were multiple vintages of the same beer lined up. I thought I was a beer hunter but these two put me to shame.

This month’s edition of the Session is being hosted by The Ferm who brings to light the topic: The Display Shelf – When to Drink the Good Stuff? In their own words:

The topic is open ended and the rules of The Session are close to nil. You can use your post to be persuasive or therapeutic. You may choose to tell a story of a great bottle you once opened or boast of your own beer collection.

Relatively speaking, I am but a babe in the craft beer world. I really didn’t get into craft beer until I started writing BetterBeerBlog about 3 years ago. Just like any other craft beer fan, the more I got into the scene, the more beers I tried. The more beers I tried, the more aware I became of the myriad number of “special” beers out there. I would read on other blogs about So-and-So Brewing Company’s special release or how Bloggie McBloggerton beer blogger was able to get their hands on a limited release XYZ beer. The more I read, the more I got sucked in. I took both mental and physical notes of these special beers in the hopes that one day, when I came across them; I could either taste them or squirrel a bottle away for later.

I would come to find I was not the only one. There are many others like me and, if you’re reading this blog, chances are good that you are a beer hunter as well. My personal collection of bottles initially filled a small chest freezer modified with a temperature control unit to keep the beers cold, not frozen. In the years since, my collection has now spanned not only that chest freezer but what little spare room there was in my kegerator, the bottom shelf of our refrigerator; the rest spread out amongst several boxes stashed in my office, a closet and in the garage. Many of the beers I’ve collected were supposed to be fodder for the  blog. If I did nothing else but drink and review a beer a day, I’d have enough content to last me several months.

Despite having a gallons of beers at my disposal, the vast majority of the beers I have are nothing special. They are all good beers in their own right but nothing you wouldn’t be able to pick up readily. That being said, I do have a few bottles in my possession that I consider head and shoulders above the rest. These beers are special for a myriad number of reasons: they are from out of my immediate area, they are able to age well, they are exclusive, limited release beers I was able to get my hands on or they are part of a larger series I am looking to complete. In just about every case, I have but a single bottle of each. Every time I look at one of them, I wonder when would be a good time to crack one open?

Unlike wine, the majority of these beers were not meant for the aging process. There are exceptions, of course, and those exceptions I can table for another day. The rest probably have a window of opportunity that is quickly coming to a close with each passing day.

There are some beers that absolutely require a “special occasion” to open them. The very first time I tried a Samuel Adams Utopia was when BJCP judge John Watson cracked open his vintage 2005 Utopia in honor of his 50th birthday. Were I to wait for a similar moment, I’d have a 15 year wait ahead of me. Would it be worth it? Dunno. Would the beer still be good? Perhaps, but chances are high that I won’t wait that long to find out.

In other instances, trying to find a good time to open up your special beers is like waiting for the stars to align in a Dark Crystal-esque manner. Firehouse brewer Steve Donohue has a stash of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot that spans a decade. We’ve talked on and off for as long as I’ve known him about putting on a horizontal tasting but settling on a time and date is proving elusive. With something as epic as a decade’s worth of Bigfoot, is there ever a “right time”?

The dry-run for the beer dinner was delicious. Unfortunately taste alone does not make a beer dinner and the event was canceled several days later. After dinner, the conversation eventually steered back to beer as it is often wont to do. While not another bottle was opened up for the remainder of the afternoon, the four of us spoke about when a good time would be to open up special beers. Regardless of time or place, the one thing we all agreed was that who you were having your beers with seemed to trump just about every other concern.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 1:36 am and is filed under Craft Beer, The Session. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.