Stoner Cellars beer.

While it's been three years since I made any beer at the late Monticello Brewing Company in Charlottesville, and most of the beer I made there was meant to be consumed while fresh, some of them were well-suited to age: the imperial stout, the cherry stout, and the barleywines. The stouts were brewed with so much flavor that even though they've faded over time, they still have a lot of flavor, and the barleywines needed a couple of years - well, four or five - to mellow out.

I recently discovered a small stash of my aging beers (okay, I'm still in the process of unpacking), and had a couple of them last night: a cherry stout, from about 1997, and a barleywine, from 1996. The cherry stout has lost all of its cherry characteristics - the hint of fruit, the juiciness, the slight tang of acid - but was still drinkable. Wish I'd had it a couple of years ago, though. In comparison, the barleywine was wonderful. All of the harshness was gone - and this beer's hallmark flavor was its rough edges. Now it's settled down to have a dark caramel flavor to match its color, the sharp alcohol flavor has disappeared, and there's a hint of pineapple on top of the gentle sweetness that remains. Yum.