For nearly a year, I’ve been moving bottles of highly ageable beers to an off-site cellar that keeps at 45 in the winter and 55 in the summer. Other than a small window, it’s completely light-free and, until recently, I didn’t experience any mold but that has changed as I now see the bottom of a few bottles have mold on them. A minor setback but it’s not the end of the world as CO2 is heavier than O2 so permeation of mold ridden air into the bottles is highly unlikely. I will be covering all of the labels with clear packaging tape to eliminate any labels being unreadable after 5-10 years.
It’s really a perfect setup because it’s not my house so I can’t come and go as I please and it’s 35 minutes from my house so I can’t just pop in to grab a few bottles of Lambic. I’m paying for the space and it’s more of a business agreement. Mostly because I want a place locally where bottles are not disturbed but also because the temperature is constant.
Heather has 150 bottles of Saisons, Lambic and Champagne stored there and I have just over 200 stored pretty much all Lambic. It’s roughly half of my cellarable bottles with another 225 more Lambic bottles to be moved over the next year.