chemist308
Well-Known Member
I have a 5% ale that's been sitting in bottles for 2 years. Safe to drink?
2 year old beer safe to drink?
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Bernie Brewer
Grouchy Old Fart
If you mean will it make you sick, then yes it is safe to drink. There are no known pathogens that can live in beer.
ErieShores
Well-Known Member
I've consumed beers in my basement that are 5+ years old, no prob. The worst that can happen is you have to dump but the flavor my be a nice treat.
Absolutely. Check this out: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/24-yr-old-bottle-dragon-stout-tasted-182691/
madbaldman
Well-Known Member
I must be a touch dyslexic, when I looked at the title to this thread I thought it said, "Two year old safe to drink beer?"
Eerational
Member
I did the same thing Stuporman
Mongrel
Well-Known Member
My three year old nephew has helped me brew, but he has a couple years before he gets a taste. But, he loves the spent grain beer bread.
OP, yeah it's safe. Might be past its prime, but depending on storage, it might even be good.
theonetrueruss
Senior Member
if it doesn't taste like crap drink it. it won't make you sick.. it might taste bad.. 5% is a bit low ABV to age that long but it might just be awesome!!!!! Drink it and stop worrying!
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I stash one bottle from every batch in a closet hidden away. I dont look at it until the one year anniversary of bottling it. I have never gotten sick and in some cases found the beer was considerably better. I say go for it!
Definitely safe and as long as your careful about oxygen it'll most likely be good.
My story: when i was in the navy, I let the fermentation temp get out of control during a couple hot summer days in Norfolk. The beer was horrible a month after bottling. Then 9/11 happened and I wasn't home a lot for a for a few years. I had a party with some buddies ( some being big beer snobs) in 2005 to finish off all my homebrew before I transferred and it was wonderful.
My story: when i was in the navy, I let the fermentation temp get out of control during a couple hot summer days in Norfolk. The beer was horrible a month after bottling. Then 9/11 happened and I wasn't home a lot for a for a few years. I had a party with some buddies ( some being big beer snobs) in 2005 to finish off all my homebrew before I transferred and it was wonderful.
To put it in perspective, in the Dec 07 Zymurgy Charlie Papazian reviewed bottles of homebrew going back to the first AHC competition that he had stored, and none of them went bad, some had not held up but most of them he felt were awesome...We're talking over 20 years worth of beers.
This is a great thread about one of our guys tasting 4-5 years of his stored brew.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/revisiting-my-classics-160672/
And I brewed an og 1.150, 150 IBU barleywine that I won't be opening for 5 years.
Not to mention the fact that there are vertical tasting for certain beers like Stone epic, where people collect each years beer and then sample a flight of them going back in time.
Nothing pathogenic can grow in beer.
This is a great thread about one of our guys tasting 4-5 years of his stored brew.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/revisiting-my-classics-160672/
And I brewed an og 1.150, 150 IBU barleywine that I won't be opening for 5 years.
Not to mention the fact that there are vertical tasting for certain beers like Stone epic, where people collect each years beer and then sample a flight of them going back in time.
Nothing pathogenic can grow in beer.
devils4ever
Well-Known Member
I opened a Barley Wine that I had stored in my attic (accident) for over 15 years. It was pretty darn good. Go for it!
chemist308
Well-Known Member
Thanks guys. When I saw the first 2 replies I decided to serve it. It was a good beer. One of the guys that had it tried to convince me to brew for a living.
It was actually this beer:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/critique-please-95760/
It was actually this beer:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/critique-please-95760/
I had one of my first brew batches that "blew out" the carboy. I relocked it and put it back in the closet. Being my first batch i didnt know about things like temp control. I left it on the yeast for about 6 weeks and finally got around to bottleing. Afer few week the beer was very "hot" and had alot fofoff flavors. I put it back in the closet and forgot about it for about two years. I recently refound it in the closet and it has considerably mellowed. Now tastes pretty good. ETOH about 10% so may have something to do with it.
You'd be a fool to dump it without even tasting it....
After aging most of mine i only found a pumpkin brew with munich yeast after 6 months start to get an old yeast taste but pretty mild and still good, but there is a liquor store which doesnt have a high turn over for craft beer and a lot of them i noticed sit for years, some of those i can see the broken up yeast that easily floats, this is how mine was and i did get a stale yeast taste like those in the store, other than this one exception alot of my others well over 6 months are very good even pale ales and ipa's.
r8rphan
Well-Known Member
I sure hope you really mean "a couple" of years. My dad was born in Germany but moved to the states when he was about 22. There was always beer on the dinner table and I was never told "NO" you can't taste Papa's beer.
Yep, but I'd feel even more the fool if it could, and did, make me or anyone else, sick.
Since nothing pathogenic can exist in beer, that's an impossibility.
As r8rphan beer has alcohol in it.....
Ok, I tasted it. Put it in a keg to see what it's like carbed up, but I still have a question.... shouldn't I be able to take a gravity reading on it? The hydrometer (right word?) didn't appear to want to float in it.
motobrewer
I'm no atheist scientist, but...
my first beer was a 1.035 english bitter. I saved one bottle and opened it after two years. It was really good!
eltorrente
Well-Known Member
C'mon now... don't tell me you aren't gonna have a sneak-taste at some point before that!
I would probably taste one on each anniversary, because I would be WAY too curious.
Congrats on having patience..
It shouldn't sit very high at all on the hydrometer. Do you have enough beer in the vial you float the hydrometer in? post fermentation it will be close to 1.000 depending on your attenuation.
Dynachrome
Well-Known Member
Was there a means for evaporation?
That would increase the specific gravity.
Of course you would have lost the alcohol first....
That would increase the specific gravity.
Of course you would have lost the alcohol first....
Not all old beer is good. I had a keg that sat in a closet for 2 years. When I finally hooked it up and carbed it, it tasted like wet cardboard. Of course, it may have tasted like that when fresh. I have no way of knowing. But I do think it had oxidized.
Dynachrome
Well-Known Member
...check out the last couple pages - pg 25~26. This was a pretty involved process.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/help-me-come-up-my-50th-birthday-my-memorial-5-year-aged-barleywine-recipe-195096/index26.html
