Home & Garden Do It Yourself

Build Your Own Beer Cellar

It's an accepted practice to age wine, since pretty much everyone knows that wine gets better with age.
What is not widely known, however, is that some beer gets better with age.
Sure, we're bombarded with beer ads every day that tell you the opposite - that beer is best served fresh.
For most beers, this is the truth.
For a small percentage, however, aging make a good beer even better.
So if you have some room in that ranch home plan for a beer cellar, you may want to consider it.
The best part is it doesn't even have to take up a lot of room.
You can store a few bottles, a few cases, or as much beer as you can fit in your space.
It's all up to you! Before you check out your English cottage house plans to see if you have any room, there are some things you should know.
Storing beer needs to be done at cellar temperature, anywhere from 50 - 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
And you're not going to want to store just any type of beer.
There are certain styles that do particularly well, mostly heavier beers with alcohol contents above 8 percent, bottle conditioned beers, or fruity lambics.
There are certainly exceptions, but for the most part these are the beers you will be looking for.
Another tip - if it has the word imperial in the name, chances are better that this is a beer you will want to age.
If you have an area with a fairly constant cellar temperature, you have to consider several more things.
One is the less light, the better.
If your house plans for log homes includes a lot of windows in your cellar area, then you may want to find some room - darkening window treatments or construct an enclosed cellar.
Finally, if you're going to age any beer with a cork in it, like many of the Belgian beers have, you'll want to keep the relative humidity a bit higher.
If you are worried about mold, there are several ways to get around that, from anti - mold spray to fans to circulate air.
Once you get everything set up, then comes the fun part - buying, aging, and drinking the beer! Some styles age best for a year, others for up to several decades.
Experiment with your own beer cellar today, and find out what works best for you.


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