A good beer you let age, just like wine. As BillsFanNC mentioned, you will see the taste improve with age. Opening is the same as wine. You need to serve it at the right temperature (just like wine). You also use hourglass shaped glasses and keep the level below the middle of the glass. This helps to trap the aroma within the glass, instead of letting it escape like it would in a pilsner glass. Letting it sit will have an effect.
As far as year to year, it depends on the ingredients used (just like wine). Bad ingredients will give you a bad beer. Quality beer is brewed to taste the same from year to year, but you will probably see subtle differences. A lot of that is more a function of conditions during brewing, fermenting, aging, transport and storage. The ingredients are controlled as best as possible.
Basically, what I am saying is that it is very similar to wine. Whatever you do with wine, you can apply to beer.