First of all, you have to consider if you had a good night of sleep.  If you didn’t sleep well, your body has not had enough REM sleep, which effects brain function.  During sleep you also produce a number of chemicals that are important to function and bodily interaction.  Sleep is also the time when our bodies fight off many residual toxins and other problematic factors.  With lack of sleep, our bodies are not as toxin free as they could be.  When a human is tired, the liver is also less effective at clearing out toxins like alcohol due to a drop in metabolic rate. The same amount of alcohol when tired vs. rested can actually result in a higher BAC for those who are tired.  This doesn’t even take serotonin, insulin, or a number of other things that are replenished during sleep.

Well, maybe you got a good night sleep.  But have you been working physically hard, especially in hot conditions?  The long and short of it is sweat.  Your body’s natural mechanism is sweating through your skin.  As you get hot, your brain tells your organs to move excessive heat to your skin.  Thus, those organs have less blood in them.  In very extreme conditions, this can actually cause death.  Really hot conditions are actually the most fertile ground.  If conditions become too bad, your heart will steal blood from your small intestines and will allow more (and dangerous) toxins into your blood stream…and ultimately the heart.  Of course, we are talking not about deadly conditions but abnormal ones, which do affect these things on a small scale.

Since you are sweating and maybe not re-hydrating properly, your body has less water.  Since it has less water, the pituitary gland produces arginine vasopression (I’ve been dying to use that word), which tells the kidney to store water.  However, this raises blood pressure and constricts veins.  Higher flow rate and thinner flow area…fast to the brain. By the way, lack of sleep can cause lack of vasopression, reducing the signal and water kept in the kidneys.

Of course, what you have or haven’t eaten can also cause adverse issues in the consumption of alcohol.  We all know that the body stores energy in fat.  When the body has not had enough energy, it begins to eat away at the reserve and metabolize that which is not food.  So, your metabolic rate actually begins to reduce in order to retard the process of using up stored energy.  You are simply not able to deal with the alcohol as quickly as you might normally have been.

There is much more boring stuff that could be said about this by much wiser men than I, but I’ll conclude by saying that one, if not all three, of these criteria have come into play when drinking.  I think the above are are three good reasons why one beer can feel like five.

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Let me tell you that cellaring good beer is much cheaper than cellaring good wine.  Wine’s reputation precedes it, so wine prices are more expensive.  Much of the difference in prices can be attributed to historical and gastronomical snobbery.  Climate also has a role to play, but this is a pretty advantageous situation for beer drinkers because we know that beer is actually better and more complex than wine, so we are content to be snobby about it in our own way.  Plus, we end up having to spend far less for beer than the wine aficionado.

Our current culture of more bang for your buck can really play into our hands.  I’m not going to play the game of “Why should I spend $10-15 for a beer?”  I intend to make the case for spending decent money on good beer elsewhere.  But let me say that a 750 ml of really good beer that is 8 or 9% ABV can be bought at the same price as an average Riesling of the same ABV (and with far more complexity and flavor).  Enough said for now about the price of beer.  Now that you are convinced that you need to cellar some beer, what should you do?

There are four things that lead to being able to cellar a beer well: alcohol, grain, hops, and temps.  

One: Alcohol

Higher alcohol levels have a tendency to store better.  Just consider the process of distilling. Basically, alcohol is extracted and organic matter is eliminated.  Nothing that can live or die will be left. Except for evaporation, a distilled product will last indefinitely.  So, the higher alcohol that is in a beer the higher probability there is that it will last longer (although this does not mean that it has less organic matter).

Two: Grain Content

The darker the grain, the longer the possible shelf-life of a beer.  Darker grains are more acidic than lighter ones, so if the beer is made from darker grains you might be in luck.  Warning: Some beers use coloring that does not add life to the beer like the grains do.  They tend to add the color rather than the more “offensive” roast/burnt taste imparted by darker grains.  So be sure that coloring wasn’t added to your beer if you plan on cellaring.

Three: Hop Content

Hops are full of acids that can be used for bittering, aroma, and flavor.  Hops come through one of two ways.  They either bitter or give aroma and taste.  So, a beer with tons of hop aroma and taste or a really bitter beer could have a considerable amount of hops.  The best thing to do is to find out what the level of hops in a beer is.  Usually, you can find out what the IBU (international bittering units) in a beer is.  The higher the level of IBUs, the higher the hop level.  Wheat beer, which is not a very hoppy style, tends to be as low as 20 IBUs.  Big IPAs can be 70, 80, or higher.  The reason that hops keep a beer longer is that the acids found in hops contribute to preserving the shelf life of a beer.

Four: Storage situation

I don’t actually have a cellar to store my beer.  What I do is use a refrigerator that is set at about 50 degrees, i.e., cellar temps.  If you don’t have either of these, you have to find the coolest (and darkest) place that you can.  Too much light is bad for beer, especially those in lighter bottles.  The other thing to consider is storage temperature changes.  Find a place that doesn’t have great swings; this will also be bad for the beer.  

Concluding remarks.  Beer can change wonderfully over time because it is a living product (or dying, depending on how you look at it).  I’ve enjoyed multiple beers that I’ve aged for five years. What should you expect over the aging life of a beer?  Beers tend to become sweeter, less disparate (they blend), and more subdued.  I’ve had beers that started out very hoppy become wonderfully ciderish.  The only way to find out what your beer will do over time is to try this for yourself.  As a rule, I don’t tend to age beers that are under 6% for more than two or three years.  Of course, it depends on the aforementioned factors.  Beers that are 7% or higher, I do for about 5 years.  But I have beers that I’m trying to do for 20 or so.  There is not really a rule of thumb, but beers between 7%-9%, you could use a correspondence method.  7% for seven years (with all things considered).  Beers 10% or above could go for ten or more.  The minimum I would go is 2 or 3 years…but longer time will keep them changing.  Cheers!

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So since I couldn’t find this beer in my neck of the woods, while I found myself in Michigan the other day I scoured the small towns I drove through till I discovered a beer and wine shop that might have a different selection.  Lo and Behold, there on the shelf was one remaining bottle of the holy grail of hops.

No wonder this beast is so renowned.  It boasts a fierce ABV of 20%.  I had to chuckle.  This is 1% lower than the alcohol laws placed on hard liquor in Ohio.  Forget the audacity of the alcohol content…it has an IBU of 120.  The bitterest of most Imperial IPAs rarely top 100.  With this in mind, I knew that this was one malty beer.

Dogfish Head’s describes this beer as:

Too extreme to be called beer? Brewed to a colossal 45-degree plato, boiled for a full 2 hours while being continuously hopped with high-alpha American hops, then dry-hopped daily in the fermenter for a month & aged for another month on whole-leaf hops!!! Our 120 Minute I.P.A. is by far the biggest I.P.A. ever brewed! At 20% abv and 120 ibus you can see why we call this beer THE HOLY GRAIL for hopheads!

Upon pouring, the color of the beer was not drastically different than a typical IPA.   A beautiful copperish color, it invites you to drink.  Upon closer inspection, there is something peculiar about this beer.  First of all, the head is extremely minimal.  In fact, there was almost no head at all.  Swishing a bit in my snifter revealed a sticky-sweet heavy viscosity.

The aroma is not as hoppy as one might expect.  Digging my nose into the glass, I did not have to search hard to find it, but the most prominent smell was that of alcohol.  The malt, missing with this smell creates a tempting aroma reminiscent of grain vodka or a dark cane sugar rum.  Holding the glass a few inches from my nose revealed a candy like smell.  It actually reminded me of “Sugar Daddy” candy.

Tasting this beer is like sipping on an aged Brandy.  You dare not guzzle it (if you still want to walk to bed!)  The taste was not very complex.  The intense alcoholic flavor hides a lot of subtleties that may be derived from the malts in the brewing process.  The hop flavor, while present, is not strong.  It does make the malty alcohol drinkable.   As I was sipping it, it tasted like a very sweet caramel candy.  Were it not for the pleasant hop bite as the brew went down my throat, I would have trouble with this one.

Despite the way this review sounds, I thought this beer was fantastic.  It is in a class of its own. It is a sipping beer.  After cutting the grass on hot summer day, would you guzzle a pint of single malt scotch to quench your thirst? No.  In the same way, you would not guzzle a 120 minute IPA.  But you would enjoy sipping your scotch or 120 minute IPA on a quiet evening and enjoy the experience.

Given my choice, I prefer Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA more, but I do intend on venturing back to Michigan to pick up another 120 Minute to throw in my cellar for a few years.

Nate’s Rating:

Overall Satisfaction: ★★★★¼ 

Among other Imperial IPAs: ★★★★¼ 

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Why is it that some beers come in those thicker bottles?  Do the companies just like thick glass?  Or is there something else?  Go back in your mind and think about what types of beer you were drinking and consider what was peculiar about those wonderful liquids.  Were any of them English or Belgian Ales?  Did the bottles say “bottle conditioned”?  It’s likely that many of them did.

Certain beers have additional yeast, sugars, or fruits added right before they are bottled.  Given that there are still fermentable sugars and residual yeasts in any given beer, they can still be fermented to some degree.  In an open vessel (i.e., not capped), carbon dioxide is allowed to escape, and fermentation continues.  In a closed (capped bottle/vessel), carbon dioxide and pressure have nowhere else to go.  For most beers the normal capped bottle is enough to contain the pressure associated with post bottle fermentation (and many many beers are pasteurized anyway, which kills any yeast that could further ferment the beer).  But under the circumstances of bottle-conditioning, additional pressure is added to the bottle and its contents.  Bottle design and glass thickness are meant to compensate for this phenomenon.  So when you notice a thicker bottled beer, look for it to be conditioned in some way.  Man, the beer world is interesting!

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This term, so loosely thrown around by pseudo beer connoisseurs everywhere deserves some attention.  Let me set the scene for you…

You are at a gathering at a friend’s house.  For the most part, the bud light is flowing.  In walks captain cliche with a pair of Sketchers, an iPhone, and a highly sophisticated case of Heineken he just purchased at Walmart.  As he esoterically asks for a bottle-opener, another, even more sophisticated attendee sipping on his Killian’s says, “whoa…keep that skunky beer away from me!”  Another guy with a sweet man-purse says, “Yeah, those Dutch guys need to invest in some brown bottles!”

All three of these guys are idiots.

It never occurred to guy one that Heineken isn’t as cool as the commercials make it out to be.  (Although I am impressed with Heineken’s ingenuity–the time spent on their pressurized mini-kegs was genius marketing).

It never occurred to guy #2 he should have kept his mouth shut.  I don’t believe that Heineken (or other so called skunky beers; i.e. Stella Artois, Grolsch, St. Pauli Girl…) are actually skunked beer.  Beer is a science.  The skunky smell and unique flavor of said beers is quite intentional.  That sulfur-ish smell and flavor may result from a delicate and precise combination of grains and yeast, interacting in and changing each other in the turbulent fermentation process.

Guy #3 (who most definitelty likes the sound of his own voice) may be on to something, but is overwhelmingly wrong.  Green bottles may affect the quality of beer, but most likely only marginally.

The fact is, skunked beer is not desirable.  It is a flaw, not intended by the brewer.  Last Friday, Mike noted that his Sierra Nevada Pale Ale had that skunked quality.  The Sierra Nevada beer I drank, miles away, most likely having being born of a different batch than Mike’s was not skunky.  Obviously, the brewer is going for uniformity in his beer, so something went wrong.

Beer becomes ’skunked’ when it is unintentionally exposed to light; more specifically, UV radiation.  That is why it is imperative for beer to be kept out of sunlight and fluorescent lighting, which emits far more UV radiation than an incandescent light bulb (fluorescent light bulbs don’t use a burning filament, rather excited ions resulting in plasma, the fourth state of matter, unique only to the sun and nuclear reactions…which makes me wonder…should the EPA be pushing so hard for these creepy bulbs?)

Anyway, when UV light streams through a bottle of beer, the hop compound (an acid used not just for flavor (bitter)  but also for preservation), as well as sulfur compounds in the beer are chemically altered from the energy.  As I said above, beer is a science.  The energy transforms the acids into 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol (thiol indicates sulfur).  As we all know, sulfur is known for having a pungent, offensive odor.  Stink bombs, well water, and skunks all utilize this element to drive people away.

The myth is busted.  Skunk beer is not a desirable trait, although many folks tend to think so and thus many brewers go after this effect naturally.  However, they are not brewing a bunch of beer in green bottles and letting them sit out in open sunlit fields.  You can avoid skunked beer by drinking your beer in the underground leaded fallout shelter in your basement like I do.

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Upon pouring the beer, I saw a light copper body and a stable head.  It was very bubbly in the glass, which made it look like a shimmering glass of liquid delight.  So far so good.

Then I stuck my nose to the glass, and the trouble began.  Somehow or some way, the beer had gained a skunky aroma.  It wasn’t anything more than a Heineken or Cervesa might be, but it wasn’t what the beer was supposed to smell like.  This happened one of two ways.  First, it could happen through the processing of the beer.  The production of MBT (3-methyl-2-butende-1-thiol) can happen when light infiltrates the beer in the processes of brewing, packaging, or a few other ways.  The second way that this compound comes about is in the bottle.  Basically, light degrades the bitterness that comes from hops (in the form of iso-a-acids).  More than likely, this happened when light came through the bottle over time.

It’s sad when this happens to a beer, but the beer was not lost forever, so I’ll tell you a little more about it.  First, the Cascade hops were not altogether lost on the nose, and I imagine that they would have been much greater had light not altered the chemical composition of the hops.  But there was still a grapefruit and piney aroma put off by the hops.  There were also caramel and grains on the nose. 

The cascades came through much better in the mouth than on the nose.  Surprisingly, the beer did not taste skunky and the hops kept some of their character.  Caramel and grains (especially on the finish) pushed their way through.  And the finish was long and somewhat dry. 

This is the review I’ve given for this beer that had deteriorated (but not fully).  I’m counting on everyone else to offer up a review that does justice to the beer as it was intended.  Let us know what you think.

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Brewing beer is easier than you might think.  Of course, there is a ton of consternation when you are watching over your first batch as though it were a newborn whose future was uncertain.  And you will do this.  But getting your equipment and brewing your first batch is a fairly economical pursuit.  You can make beer brewing as simple or as challeging as you want to.  Do you know someone who already brews?  He or she can be a great source of help and comfort when you are brewing your first batch.

One of the best and most classic books about brewing that could be extremely helpful, as far as information and beginning (and even intermediate/advanced) knowledge has to be Charlie Papazian’s The Complete Joy of Home Brewing.  This book has sold well over a million copies.  I can’t recommend this book enough, even if you don’t plan to brew.  The book really helps you get a knowledge about how beer works and builds your appreciation of this wonderful art that we call beer. 

Please consider brewing or at least arming yourself with more knowledge about beer.  We also have numerous articles on our site that deal with various aspects that go into beer.  It’s time to go a little deeper.

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A Pale Ale is not pale at all.  The utilization of lighter grains as compared to those used in English Porters and Stouts helped to give this beer its name.  Some of this had to do with technological advance.  I’ve written some stuff on grains already, so I’m not going to cover it much here (I’m providing multiple links in the articles to cover some other questions you might have).  In addition to being lighter than other Ales of the time, the beer was also more hopped than a Porter or Stout might typically be.  Rolling Rock is not actually a good example of a Pale Ale (check out the Samuel Smith’s that we have reviewed on here for a more classic example of this beer type).

Well, Pale Ales were great for the homefront.  But what about people in the British Empire who were far away?  By the time the Pale Ales that were sent to them from England reached them, they were old and spoiled.  Remember, the beer had to be shipped by boat in large wooden barrels.  The trip to India by boat was a long journey.  So, how could beer be transported to those who were so far away?  The solution gave birth to the India Pale Ale.  There are some other legends related to how this beer came about, such as a stranded merchant who needed to unload his beer, etc.  However, I think the first instance is the true story. 

What had to be changed about a Pale Ale to make it into what became known as India Pale Ale?  First of all, you had to up the grain content.  Second, you had to up the hop content.  Both of these had to be done generously.  Adding both grains and hops increased the shelf-life of the beer.  Not only so, but hops act as an antiseptic for beer.  The acids in the hops were especially key for both the shelf-life and cleansing aspects of the beer’s life.  I’ve read that hop levels could be as much as five times the average beer today.  Of course, some of this relates to using old hops and so forth, but they were still extremely hopped. 

From there, people (mainly soldiers at first) developed a taste for the style.  They began asking for that highly hopped beer that they’d had in India.  Until recently, this seems to be the way of things,  namely, many of our current beers were born out of historically necessary circumstances.  Now many brew to create something new and fresh.  Some historical necessities are just great modern amenities!

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I remember the first time I bought Guinness Draught in the can.  My first thought was, “Who screwed up?”  But then I examined the can and realized that the little ball in my empty can must be a result of the most brilliant minds of science (beer science) for the purpose of simulating Guinness off the tap.  I was right.  But not knowing how something works bugs me, and I am guessing bugs a lot of other beer drinkers.  So here’s whats in your beers:

Typically beer is carbonated with CO2.  In the can this CO2 is in the beer itself, and in the can.  That’s why when you pop the top of a canned beer it goes, “pshhhht.”  That is the preassurized CO2 that rests on the surface of the beer escaping the can.  When the CO2 escapes, it agitates the beer, as does the action of pouring, causing some of the CO2 mixed in the liquid to escape.  You see this in the form of the head that floats on top of your beer.  (Don’t worry, even though I know the science behind it I too still like to refer to it (head) as “magic.”

Beers like Guinnes and Wexford were traditionally pub brews, only available in the pub.  They are creamier and substantially less carbonated than a canned lager.  Off the tap, the substanital pressures of the tap mechanism ensure a heady pour, but in the can, Guinness is preasurized with CO2 and Nitrogen.  While CO2 easily dissolves into the beer, Nitrogen does not.  The pour out of the can results in a far-from-pub experience.

To better appeal to their customers at home (and to increase their competitive edge) Guinness, as far back as 1968, began the inventive proccess that has led to the floating widget you see (or hear) today.  This floating widget, this marvel of human ingenuity, is  a capsule of different shapes and sizes depending on the producer, that contains carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.  These gasses are released as the can is opened, infusing the beer and creating the ambiance consumers desire.

Without the widget, your Guinness, or Wexford, or Bodingtons, would just be a mostly fizzless, headless, creamy beer.  This isn’t really a huge deal to me, but given the choice, I’ll take the widget!

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