Holy shit, this is phenomenal! Everywhere has its own different beers and styles. “So, when I got to Europe I was like a kid in a candy store. Most bars had three or four taps – your good ones had six, and the extra three would be Guinness, Bass and Harp, which came as a package. Even the handful of old regional brewers still in business were only producing light, yellow lagers. “Just light, yellow lagers coast-to-coast. “The scene here in the US was just dismal,” he recalls. His story is similar to so many other first-wave American craft brewers: backpacking around Western Europe in the summer of ’82, Dan was shocked to find not just great, flavourful beers, but also a culture in which beer and breweries were tightly integrated into community life and local tradition. While I’m sure it’s absolutely true that he’s kept very busy, Dan is also an absolute gentleman, and an hour into our 30-minute chat in Harpoon’s beer hall, I’m slapping my thigh with laughter and thoroughly convinced he should be running something rather larger than a brewery. Cask/bottle conditioning is one trick to replicate that.Harpoon co-founder Dan Kenary is a busy guy, and on our second day at Harpoon we’re told we’ll be able to get a 30-minute sit-down with him, to discuss the brewery’s history and values, and generally tie together all the good things we’d seen and heard about. OTOH, commercial breweries have access to sophisticated packaging equipment that allows very low levels of oxygen pickup, and it's hard (but not impossible) to replicate that at home. I've also seen somewhere that Vinnie prefers Pliny at 7 weeks. John Kimmich once drank the same batch of Heady Topper daily back in the days when it was only on draught and found for him it peaked at 10 weeks (ie 6 weeks after release), although there's a hint that nowadays his taste lies to something a bit younger at the same time in that video he drinks a can that's been stored cold for 8-9 months and claims the taste has not deteriorated much although it''s clearly a lot darker. So it just depends on where the balance of the beer lies - and on personal taste as well. Malt-led beers need a couple of months to really come together, if bitterness features strongly then that takes a bit of time to for the raw edges to come off - but with the small-molecule aromas you're losing them from the start. Obviously that's not true of all modern beers that carry the IPA name, it depends so much on the exact style. The whole point of an India Pale Ale was to make it robust enough to survive such treatment. Of course, to properly mature an IPA, it needs at least three months being bounced around a ship in the tropics - I know people who have kept a keg in their car to approximate that treatment. Worthington's White Shield is one, and I'm not sure about Marston's Old Empire but Pedigree is so it wouldn't surprise me if Old Empire is. I could go on and on but for now this should give you some decent info. In our tests over 60 days the beer that was warm stored one week is far superior to the beer stored 2 weeks, more than 2 weeks shortens the shelf life dramatically. How is it stored? Storing beer, especially IPA warm (at room temp) is INFURIATING to me. While It was a pale ale folks have been surprised at how much hop flavor is present and how drinkable it is.(That was 5 years ago.)ģ. It was bottle conditioned AND I dipped the crowns in sealing wax. I have some of my 1st batch of homebrew prob close to 10 years old now. Some caps are better at not allowing oxygen in as others. Some crowns actually eat aroma and then flavor. For reference we do NOT bottle condition.Ģ. How much I can't say but it is known that this will extend shelf life. Is the IPA bottle conditioned? Bottle conditioning will extend shelf life. We have and continue to do closely monitored tastings comparing old and new date codes of all our beers but the IPA shows it's age fast.ġ. Since we don't do all these things or do not have absolute control over teh product once it leaves we have found 60 days to be the max we could go. Our product has a 60 day shelf life but this can be shortened or extended based off conditions. Kegs that are pressure transferred and filled will last longer than any bottles.Īt the brewery, for bottles, we use a machine but the concept is the same at home, sanitize, fill and cap. (Since you probably do not have a canner I will assume bottles and crown caps.