Bottle Conditioned

Last night, I dropped by the liquor store (Red Dog Wine and Spirits in Franklin, TN) to grab a bottle of white wine that I needed to cook with. As is usual, I made sure to check out the beer selection while I was there. One particular beer stood out at me: Gale’s Prize Old Ale. It stood out for one particular reason - it was bottled in 1996! Immediately, I decided I needed to give this a try, picked up a bottle (at the very reasonable price of $3.99) and brought it home (I also got a bottle of Stone’s Vertical Epic…but that’s another post).

Mollie and I sat down before dinner to give this beer a try. If anything should be a testament to the benefits of cellaring beer, this one certainly showed the worth in it. The beer poured a nice deep brown, and we drank it from snifters. The nose on the beer was incredible! Cedar wood, chocolate, prunes, raisins, black cherry…amazing. Indeed, the taste was right in line with the nose, with most of the same notes coming out (save the cedar wood) in the flavor. In addition, a nicely balanced sourness was apparent in the beer, which added a nice extra layer of complexity. Carbonation was low, which was expected, and the alcohol content, although at a nice 9%, was tempered and melded nicely into the background of the beer.

Overall, it was a pretty awesome experience. In 1996, I had just gotten my driver’s license, Bill Clinton was president, and the words “”blog” and “podcast” sounded like some alien language. This beer has seen many changes from inside its small, unassuming bottle over the past few years. The taste in the beer was what you’d expect from a beer that had been aged for that long - very complex. At the end of the glass, I was still pulling out various flavors that had surfaced up as the beer warmed. Luckily, there were no apparent signs of oxidation (at least, not offensively) or light striking, so it seems the beer was stored well for its long slumber.

Very recommended. If you can find a bottle, I’d buy a few and drink them over the years. Just don’t go buy them from my liquor store - they’re all mine

P.S. Food pairing note: This beers seems like it will go great with a flank steak or London Broil on the grill. Something with a nice amount of smoky char. We’re going to try this pairing soon - I’ll let you know what we think.

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