What are people’s thoughts? Does anyone have personal experience or know people who do? Tasting it young, it seems like one that will go quite a while (5-6 years at least?), but I don’t really know. I do think I’m going to prefer it with at least a couple of years on it.
I had a bottle sourced from Belgium before the American release. I can only imagine it had several years on it. Not having tasted a current release and only guessing that the bottle was 2-5 years old, it was one of the best beers I’ve ever had. Just slightly sweet, not boozy, so seamless and complete. If those notes don’t match the bottle you had, I’d say wait.
I had a bottle once with 10 years on it and it was very good. A second bottle from the same batch is still sitting in my cellar, and now has about 15 years on it. It will get opened eventually.
St Bernardus Abt 12, which is comparable says on their bottle 15 years. Westy is do hard to come by, one wouldn’t last that long at my place.
We had a 2000 Stille Nacht Reserva over the holidays, and while not exactly a quad, not a big jump either.
Nutshell- as long as it is cool & dark, you’ll be fine.
I noticed that statement on the back of a St Bernardus Abt 12 bottle after posting this. I was doing a side-by-side tasting of Westvleteren and Bernardus. I could see some similarity, but the Bernardus was like a much less complex version of the Westy. I went in expecting to like them about the same and be happy that I can get more Bernardus, but sadly, that was not at all the case. Anyway, I’ve got 4 bottles left of Westvleteren, and I will try to forget about them for some time. I wonder, are they really improving after 6 or 8 years, or just continuing to age? I know that’s a little subjective. I expect to like them just fine around 5-6 years, so that’s probably what I will shoot for with 3 of them, then maybe I’ll bury the last one and see what happens.
Doug, I think you may have tasted a Westy 12 and St Bernie 12 with different ages. My tasting results were opposite for “fresh” bottles side-by-side. At 5 years of age, the Westy tastes as Nolan noted above while the Bernie seems softer and simpler. At 10, Bernie picks up steam while Westy falls into the soft phase. Haven’t had a 15 year side-by-side yet (see me in 4 years).
That’s quite possible, Peter, and “softer and simpler” is a great way to describe the way the Bernardus tasted in comparison to the Westvleteren. I do know that the Westy was from the recent release, but it’s possible that the Bernardus had a couple of years of less than stellar storage under its belt. It sounds like about 5 years out will be a great time for me to open the next of my Westies.