Can’t say I’m the sort of bloke who deliberately cellars beer – it’s more a case of certain bottles getting lost for an extended period of time in my cool-room. That’s right – for the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed the luxury of storing all my beer tasting samples in a corner of a medium-sized cool-room.

Truth to tell, I do get sent rather a lot of samples and while I try to taste every new beer shortly after its arrival, the remnants of various six-packs and cartons are sometimes overlooked. Every now and then I have a partial clean-out – often giving away cartons of odds and sods which I know might be nearing the end of their useful life-cycle.

Naturally enough, I tend to hang onto the vintage-dated ales and various special releases that are designed for extended cellaring, and these are exactly the sorts which end up buried away at the back of a bottom shelf.

When a couple of house guests came to stay over the holiday season – let’s call them The Yank and The Greenie – they took a particular interest in my collection of beer samples. It was pretty obvious that where I saw a chaotic storage system, they saw a hoard of potential amber treasure.

Tapping into their youthful enthusiasm, I suggested they might like to clean the bottles and shelves and re-arrange them in a more orderly fashion. The offer of a tasting of older beers afterwards was like handing petrol and matches to a pair of pyromaniacs.

Within a couple of hours they had systematically re-catalogued my samples by style and brewery; not surprisingly, the top shelf was reserved for my oldest and rarest beers. And the subsequent tasting was something of a revelation, convincing me that we should be talking about “fridging” certain strong, bottle-conditioned ales, rather than “cellaring” them.

Sure, several of the beers sampled were well over-the-hill and showing dull, oxidized flavours, but three of the oldest bottles – the 2004 and 2006 Coopers Vintage Ale, and Moo Brew 2007 Imperial Stout – were positively stunning. Each had mellowed and developed all sorts of interesting flavours which weren’t there in my initial tasting notes.

“The beer can certainly be enjoyed now,” Dr Tim Cooper said about the 2009 Coopers Vintage Ale on its release, “but if carefully cellared, it will develop sweet caramel and toffee characters which will increase with age.”

How would keeping it in a fridge affect that ageing process?

“We recommend a constant cellar temperature of 20◦C with a maximum of 30◦C, but we can see no problem with going down to 1◦ C as long as you did not freeze it,” he said. “The simple physical chemistry must be that lower the temperature, the slower the ageing. Also bear in mind that the bottles should be stored to minimize exposure to light as well as heat.”

Maybe I should re-organise my beer samples more often.

TASTING NOTES

COOPERS VINTAGE ALE 2004 (7.5%)

Copper-amber, clear as a bell. Clean toffee notes upfront, a hint of Madeira and peaches in the complex mid-palate, finishes with rounded, developed caramel notes and a nicely mellowed bitterness. A gem which made me re-assess just how some strong ales can improve substantially with careful cellaring/fridging.

COOPERS VINTAGE ALE 2006 (7.5%)

Copper-amber, star bright. Similar toffee notes to ’04 initially, but balanced by an underlying fruitiness – suggestions of dried apricots and muscatels; again the bitterness,  yeast and high-alcohol characters have mellowed into a well-integrated but still complex palate. Still full of life but love to try it with another couple of years under its belt.

MOO BREW IMPERIAL STOUT 2007 (8.5%)

Pitch black, pours with a huge, creamy, tightly-packed head. Inky and oily at first, the mid-palate is full of coconut and dark fudge characters, with a lingering, lip-smacking finish. Oh, boy – this one really needed those couple of years spent resting in the dark recesses of my fridge.