Cracking The Beercave

Trumpets please. Ahem. One year and a half after we first birthed this cacamamy scheme to cellar some of our beer purchases, our “Beer Cave” is finally mature (give or take a few repeat bottles, which will come in handy for taste-offs). That’s right, our stash has finally surpassed the official “99 bottles of beer” threshold, which means we can start cracking these old bottles open and taste the fruits of our patience. That doesn’t mean we’re done of course, just that we can now rotate out some peak bottles for special occasions as we replace them with fresh purchases.
This week we’re tasting the first batch, which we’ll preface below. But first, without further a-do, Hot Knives presents — the October roster of the 99 bottles of beer on our wall…

Not too shabby. In the months to come, expect to see posts and tasting notes on everything from year-old Christmas ales to face-offs between different years in Stone Brewing’s Vertical Epic series. But for now, we have some dirty ol’ IPA guzzling to do.
You see, this milestone has come not a minute too soon, because not all of the beers we have whisked off store shelves in the last 16 months are the kind typically recommended for aging: that is especially true of the small selection of India Pale Ales and Imperial IPAs that have been skunking up our shelves for months. Wish us luck, this could get stanky. Look for the results later this week. To be continued…