[Ed Meyer]

I have only made beer from kits for several years, but am going to start with all grain and then put it into 5 gals casks.  My question is I bottled some beer in 7/2016, but lost it in a refrigerator.  I found it and it is some of the best.  That was in the bottles, but how does it age in a stainless steel cask?

Ed Meyer
southern Oregon coast

[Kochhandwerk]

You'll continue to get secondary fermentation from any microbes that reside in the beer, but you won't get any microbial character from the wood nor any wood/char flavor you might get depending upon the barrel. You also won't have beer evaporating, so your volume should be quite similar to what went in.  I would guess the aging would be very similar to your glass bottle aging, though depending upon how you fill it you might get more oxidation.

[joe_meadmaker]

Another thing that will be a factor is temperature.  Your bottles in the fridge will have matured more slowly than a container at cellaring or room temperature.  In general, the warmer the beer is, the faster it will age.

I agreed with Koch, if you have a closed vessel, your aging time should be similar to what it is in a bottle.  I age mead in kegs all the time.  You just want to make sure to have as little head space as possible and/or purge the oxygen if you can.  I usually fill the keg, purge the O2, and put it in the basement to let time do its thing.