Wes Leslie hosted an “expired craft beer party” in his San Francisco apartment. He and several friends drank craft beers from the previous decade, including a 2015 bottle of Firestone Walker Stickee Monkee, a Scarface Imperial Stout from Speakeasy Ales & Lagers, and a 14-year-old De Struise Brouwers Black Albert from Belgium. Leslie collected these rare barrel-aged bottles while working at Speakeasy and shopping specialty shops like the famed (and now closed) City Beer Store in San Francisco.
The gathering served as a trial to see how the beers had held up over time. Leslie turned up several that stood out, though not all performed equally well. He wound up agreeing that they had sat far too long and had now “kinda disgusting.”.
At least they were no longer in his life.
How Leslie Fell Out of Love With Beer
In the early-2010s, Leslie began amassing barrel-aged beers. While employed at Speakeasy, he acquired scarce releases, and he also picked up interesting bottles from specialty beer shops to store beneath his counter. He referred to the collection as a “little cellar.”.
The years rolled by, and he grew tired of beer. Instead, he turned toward cocktails. He let the bottles sit untouched until the taste of beer had faded from his liking.
That pile was the reason for the gathering. A number of old friends — once serious beer enthusiasts who remembered the bottles at their best — were asked to join him and sample roughly four dozen over-aged bottles.
The Author’s Own Cellar
The writer acknowledges his own guilty habit. He purchased far more beer than he could drink during the past ten years. Cases of Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout and its offshoots. Bombers of Three Floyds Dark Lord covered in wax, secured at Dark Lord Day in Indiana back in 2010. Numerous stouts from Hardywood Park, Founders, and Side Project. Wild ales from The Rare Barrel, Jester King, and de Garde.
The Bruery’s 12 Days of Christmas is a series he still owns from top to bottom, one he started building in 2008 with Partridge in a Pear Tree and finished seven years ago with 12 Drummers Drumming.
The Early Years of Craft Beer
The author started drinking craft beer casually in college, when fruit beers like Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, Abita Purple Haze, and Magic Hat #9 signaled something other than the ubiquitous macro swill. After moving to New York, he bought 6-packs of Brooklyn Lager, Victory HopDevil, and Belgian imports like Duvel, fully consuming them before the weekend was over.
By the late aughts, distribution had grown better, and he became obsessed. He discovered Beer Advocate’s Top 100 Beers in the World and resolved to taste every single one of them.
Three stout brews and two pale ales make up this list: a Russian River elder and its younger sibling, a Portsmouth beer named after a queen, and two dark beers from Founders, one aged with Kentucky spirit.
These were limited beers that you sometimes had to travel across the country to locate. High-ABV releases came out perhaps once per year. Beers you needed to seek out at specific places in Europe, such as the longtime top-rated Westvleteren XII, a Trappist quadruple put out almost exclusively by the monastery, which was so rough in appearance it literally didn’t even have a label.
Broke and alone, he kept changing where he lived across all five boroughs. Storing beer was rarely an option for him. Yet he gradually began putting away select bottles — Firestone Walker Parabola, The Bruery Black Tuesday, Surly Darkness — when he happened to acquire more than one of any given kind.
He carried the cache with him from place to place, never stashing it in a cellar but rather on a closet floor, behind a pantry door, or occasionally on a bookshelf, squeezed in among whatever volume he happened to be reading at the time.
The Apartment That Changed Everything
That changed when he moved in with the woman who’d become his wife in 2012. Suddenly he had roots, a multi-room apartment with no roommates (besides her), and somewhere permanent to put beer. She’d taken him for a minimalist — a couple suitcases of clothes, a few boxes of books, not a stick of furniture. She’d soon learn he was just waiting for space.
The craft beer scene had reached a fever pitch, with events, rare releases, and festivals nearly every weekend. He was finally starting to make a little money from it. So when he found cases of Goose Island Bourbon County Rare — their famous imperial stout aged in 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle barrels — at a Whole Foods in 2010, he could afford several bottles even at $45 a pop.
On a trip to Southern California, he picked up a full case of The Lost Abbey’s Duck Duck Gooze. Later, when he visited Belgium in 2013, he packed as many bottles of Cantillon into his luggage as he could manage without crossing the line with customs.
For many years, he consumed a great deal of these beers. At the same time, he was putting away far larger quantities for aging.
The Fall From Craft Beer
The author and Leslie both eventually lost interest in beer. According to the author, his own affection for beer faded at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Christopher Nyren, a 48-year-old Chicago man, shares the same regret. He started cellaring beer in 2014, as the hobby was peaking. Hazy IPAs traded across the country weekly. Pastry stouts flipped online the day they dropped. Rare lambics sold like vintage Bordeaux. His cellar once topped 500 bottles; he’s since winnowed it to around 350, mostly centered on Revolution’s Deep Wood barleywine cans.
Every day, Nyren admits to wishing he had never put together such an absurd collection.
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not regret my ridiculous collection.”
Two Experiences
The story describes two separate experiences with craft beer collections. Leslie’s party involved beers from the previous decade, while the author’s own stash spans years of purchases from the late aughts onward.
The common bond ties together those letting go of their love for the hobby. Leslie’s gathering served as an occasion to sample the bottles he no longer wished to keep.
The Lesson
Time does not always improve everything, and the story serves as a funny reminder of that fact. Both Leslie and the author opened bottles they had saved for years, and found that they had passed their prime.
Cellaring beer is a pastime, not a way to build wealth. The finest beer is the bottle you crack open right now.
Source material: “Rare Beer Was Once a Collector’s Dream. Now, It’s a Liability.,” VinePair.
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