Scored a 4 pack. Now what do I do?
according to Jonathan, forget about it for ~6 years.
Man, enjoy it now and later. It’s hoppy early, then fades away into malty barleywine-ness over time. It’s great whenever you have it. I drank my stash up last year - I had 6 years worth, over a couple different verticals. Drink one, then save a few.
For sure a now-n-later experience. takes patience though.
What is the proper fung shway, brandy snifter? I’ll probably taste one, share one, stash two. Cold store?
sure, a snifter would be nice. store cellar temps ~55 ideally.
Yep, works for me.
Opened one. I get it now. Big pale ale. Very very nice. I could drink ten of them, and not sure I could save one. 9.6% so average IPA alc strength for Washington LOL Great stuff. Yum
That was what I said the first time I had one ! They’re great fresh, and like Mort said they’re hard to hang on to. But they age wonderfully too. SN just needs to brew more !
They do age much better since they stopped using screw-tops, but Bigfoot has always been fantastic fresh as well. I usually but a pack to stash in the cellar when they come out, and then just buy as needed for general consumption.
To me, Bigfoot isn’t necessarily a brandy-snifter type barleywine. I save that for English Barleywines/Quads/RIS/etc. I’ll gladly drink Bigfoot out of a pint/Sam Adams glass/Red Solo Cup/etc.
When we did a vertical there was a marked reduction in the aging qualities from 07 to 08. They went to the pry off cap in 08.
I like Bigfoot 2014 today. I bought 4, drank 2, and will probably drink both the others within a year or two.
If I had to guess I would say its Celebration first runnings.
I have a 4 yr vertical tasting stored in the cellar…hmmmm…one of these days
I better get to sampling…gave up adding more to the collection.