I am normally a kegger and like to drink my beer from the taps (well, I usually use a glass, but sometimes...)
I bottle a few bottles of each batch though to trade or gift or just to be able to go back and review or experiment with or whatever. So I can bottle too.
But, I just finished a barleywine and bottled the whole batch so I didn't take up my keg space and I can't see drinking a glass of that every night. I want to keep it for years.
But I still have a big pile of bottles left to be filled.
My question is this: What are good styles that will age well in the bottle that are not Barleywine? I want to do another big brew and let some more stuff go right to bottles to age. Call it "filling the pipeline". Can anyone recommend any styles or specific recipes? How long should they age? If possible, can you include a few styles that don't use the wild yeast strains, I am not wild (hah!) about contaminating my equipment.
This is a weak point in all of the recipe books that I have read. They never really tell you if the beer would benefit from much ageing or what the "sweet spot" would be. I know it is dependent on ingredients and sanitation and storage conditions, but I would like a ballpark at least.
