Vintage Beer Documentation?

[JohnfromPurdue]

I've been getting interested in vintage beer, and I don't mean 2007 BCBS. I'm talking old beer, Pre-2000 Gueuze, Belgian Strongs, or anything else that might have held up to the sands of time. Would anyone be interested in documenting their experiences in a spreadsheet? Sites like BA and RB don't do a good job distinguishing vintages. In the past year I've had '91 De Neve, '80something Stille Nacht, and 1995 Fantome Printemps. All of which were still great beers and in the case of the Fantome, the '95 blew the 2012 out of the water. Since vintage beer can be just as expensive/hard to get as the legit white whales, I thought it would be nice having a spreadsheet indicating vintage/tasting notes/storage conditions/would you seek out again?/was it worth the price? kind of stuff. Would anyone else be interested in this kind of information? I can create a google doc if there is some interest, otherwise I'd rather not waste my time.

 

[stupac2]

There's always Untappd, which does keep vintage information. If you're looking for tasting notes on vintage quads, for instance, look up Westvleteren 12, Rochefort 10, Pannepot, etc and check out the vintages.

One thing worth noting is that when you're dealing with 10- or 20-year-old bottles, you're often basically entering a lottery. Even if they're stored well, that's just a lot of time for **** to go wrong. And besides that, even people who like aged beer can have drastically different opinions on what's good, so you can get wildly different perspectives from the same bottle. I think that oxidation is one of the most divisive "flavors" in beer (air quotes because it's not really a single flavor, but I think that gets the idea across).

Anyway, I could contribute a bit to a spreadsheet or whatever, but it would basically be my tasting notes from Untappd.

 

[stakem1]

I dont understand how a spreadsheet would be helpful. A singular opinion of a specific brew/vintage is not a good basis for formulating an opinion to categorize or list/rate vintage beers. Even if you get multiple people drinking the same vintage year of say Thomas hardy or JW Lees, the storage conditions might be very similar but opinions could vary drastically.

You are not alone in your enjoyment of vintage brews. We have a monthly discussion that sorta covers this in a sporatic sort of documented way relating to what people are drinking currently.

Fantome is a very unique beast that warrants its own disussion in and of itself. Fantome from the mid 2000s and earlier is not of the same calibre of anything in the past couple of years. Now, excuse me while i continue to empty my cellar trying convert it to vintage only Fantome bottles.

Edit: Stupac types faster than me

 

[JohnfromPurdue]

There's always Untappd

I've never used Untappd, mostly because I don't have a smart phone and I'm an 80 year old stuck in a 28 year old body. After a quick search, it looks like Untappd has got the information I'm looking for.

I dont understand how a spreadsheet would be helpful. A singular opinion of a specific brew/vintage is not a good basis for formulating an opinion to categorize or list/rate vintage beers. Even if you get multiple people drinking the same vintage year of say Thomas hardy or JW Lees, the storage conditions might be very similar but opinions could vary drastically.

It wouldn't be for any ranking purposes. It would be just be a resource for traders. I get that every vintage brew is different but if you have 4 people saying that the beer was barely drinkable you would think twice about trading for it. It would also be a consolidated listing that could be sorted and searched easily. I think the biggest problem with it would be the small sample size. Untappd kind of fixes that.

 

[stupac2]

Untappd kind of fixes that.

For some beers. For others there's definitely a dearth of information. But I think that it'll be a pretty good guide as long as you're not talking about things from before this century.

 

[MordorMongo]

Hey JohnfromPurdue - if you need claaark13's phone number all you need to do is ask.

He IS a spreadsheet of vintage beer information.....assuming De Dolle is your jam

 

[jedwards]

The monthly cellared beer review threads are generally a good resource as well (and please post your impressions there too!), e.g.: http://www.talkbeer.com/community/threads/cellared-beer-reviews-february-2014.6117/

I'd also love to see more people put in the provenance of their aged beer in their review when it's known. Makes a huge difference if a bottle's been in a walled-off cellar or a shop window.