Aging. Such a sweet thing.

Last February, I made an Imperial Irish Red Ale for St. Patty's Day. The beer was based off of Northern Brewer's Irish Red Ale kit, with an additionalsix pounds of malt (Three pounds of LME, three pounds of DME) and an additional one ounce of Cascade to dry hop. The OG turned out to be 1094 which attenuated down to a disappointing 1032. After a month in glass secondary and a month in bottle, the beer had a distinct "green apple" aroma typical of incomplete fermentation. The beer tasted ok, but was far from good. In truth, I was disappointed that my first attempt at a high-gravity beer failed so miserably. Don't get me wrong, 8.5% ABV tastes pretty good, but when you aren't really enjoying it, it tends to sit awhile on the beer shelf. Which leads us to tonight....

A couple of weeks ago, I threw a couple of bottles of some of my older brews (Kick Down Freeze ESB, Christmas and Spice, MyBock, Heavy Irish) into the fridge to chill. I had decided that I needed to suck it up and suck them down to free up the bottles and to get some of my least favorite beers drank up. Tonight, I decided to take a crack at the Heavy Irish. I poured it from a bomber into a pilsner glass (all pints were dirty). The head looked a little darker than usual (medium tan compared to light tan) and the beer seemed to have darkened a shade or two. I swirled the beer a little and stuck my nose in it. Oak, faint alcohol, and faint Cascade come into play. The first sip was heaven. The oak was back along with currant, biscuit, chocolate, slight alcohol warming, and very little bitterness. It was delicately sweet and exhibited none of the green apple that had plagued the young beer.

Age does this beer well. Luckily, I still have a couple of bottles left over that are going to be entered in the THIRSTY competition on November 1st at Millstream in Amana, Iowa. Hopefully the judges will think the same.