I just received a Unibroue Trois Pistoles today from someone. I looked at the date and it stated "Best before 11/02/02" Um...that's 10 years ago, and while I like this beer, I'm not sure it's a good aging beer...at least not 10 years. Should I even attempt drinking this?
Old, old, OLD beer
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yes.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
Not just yes, but HELL YES!
TimpanogosSlim
Well-Known Member
revvy has drank beer way older than that
bigbeergeek
Well-Known Member
Why ask? Were your panties on the line? It may not be in it's prime, but it is still good! I had one that froze in the trunk a few years ago, and it wasn't worth drinking. It broke the bottle, but my trunk didn't need an air freshener.
I bought a beer (stout) in 1987 and drank it last year. It can be done.
BTW, it really sucked.
BTW, it really sucked.
adamjackson
Well-Known Member
Should be drinkable. It's a beer that can be aged. 2-5 years Max before flavors begin to fade. Old beer can't hurt you but flavors and oxidation can really come out with age. Oldest beer I had was in May a 1989 Gueuze in Belgium. It was remarkable. It's not uncommon for friends to open 90s SN Bigfoot or very old Lambics.
Let us know how it is photos if you can!
Let us know how it is photos if you can!
bigbeergeek
Well-Known Member
Trois Pistoles is my least favorite of the Unibroue lineup. The spices always taste off to me. I'm a big La Fin du Monde guy, though.
TimpanogosSlim
Well-Known Member
I had an 8 year old oatmeal stout. But it spent those 8 years in a keg under refrigeration and co2 pressure.
It was high alcohol, and chewy.
And good.
It was high alcohol, and chewy.
And good.
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I forgot about a third of a keg of homebrew when I moved. Stored it at room temp for nearly six years without realizing there was beer inside.
It was around 7.2%ABV. An English Brown Ale. And it was still quite good.
Not only should you drink it, but you should get yourself a fresh bottle for a side-by-side comparison. Learn yourself something!
It was around 7.2%ABV. An English Brown Ale. And it was still quite good.
Not only should you drink it, but you should get yourself a fresh bottle for a side-by-side comparison. Learn yourself something!
ReverseApacheMaster
Well-Known Member
I once had a bottle of trois pistol that was about two years old. Terrible.
And not their beer, Terrible. Just nasty. Tasted like burnt engine oil.
And not their beer, Terrible. Just nasty. Tasted like burnt engine oil.
Mmmm hmmm.
Few brews actually stand that long a test of time with aplomb. I suspect what's really going on here is essentially the same paradigm that fills the stands at NASCAR events: of course they're rooting for you to drink that beer and hoping for an epic car crash! :rockin:
Cheers! And good luck with all that
Few brews actually stand that long a test of time with aplomb. I suspect what's really going on here is essentially the same paradigm that fills the stands at NASCAR events: of course they're rooting for you to drink that beer and hoping for an epic car crash! :rockin:
Cheers! And good luck with all that
Grousebane
Active Member
so how was it?
My father brewed back in the day...I was scrounging their basement for some more of his old heavy export bottles for a sparkling wine and found a few bottles of his old brew! Rusty caps, dusty bottles with sediment hardened to an immobile cake. His recipe: 1 can Coopers extract (he never mentions hops, so apparently the extract was hopped?), similar amount of regular sugar, 1 packet "brewers yeast" (he'd never even heard of "lager" yeast). Sounds nasty, guaranteed to create the classic "cider" off-tastes, but I was surprised. Not actually drinkable, the bottle did give an good audible hiss when the cap was tipped off. The tiny amount of acetobacter that had managed to get in originally must have had a field day with all that table sugar and would have made the beer totally unpalatable for quite some time - however, the bottles sat in a cool, dark, undisturbed basement for a few decades and the acetobacter had time to fully finish and clean up. The end result was a very clean malty vinegar that I certainly can't drink, but does make a killer salad dressing. At about 40 years old, originally brewed in a trash can, from a recipe that today we'd never consider brewing.....not too bad!
Good story!
Trois Pistoles is a 9% ABV Belgian Strong Dark Ale...this beer is going to be as good for aging as almost any other, and I would bet it is not only drinkable, but very good! +1 to drinking a fresh one along side the old! And PICS, please!
Edit: I will slightly modify my statement based on the below from the Unibroue Trois Pistoles website...I still think you should drink it in parallel with a new bottle, and it will be good, but it could be *slightly* past prime:
Edit: I will slightly modify my statement based on the below from the Unibroue Trois Pistoles website...I still think you should drink it in parallel with a new bottle, and it will be good, but it could be *slightly* past prime:
Potential:
5 to 8 years.
Like good wine, Unibroue’s fine beers have flavors that develop with age. Over time they become smoother, sometimes revealing notes of honey and candied fruit and developing a more assertive and lasting flavor. This phenomenon is known as “maderization” and is similar to the aging process of dessert wines like port.
Preservatives
Oxygen is the mortal enemy of beer because oxidation creates a stale, flat flavor. The yeast added to the bottle of Unibroue products triggers natural fermentation, consuming excess oxygen and preventing the beer’s CO2 from oxidizing. This enhances the beer’s aging potential. The high alcohol content of certain Unibroue products also lends itself well to aging by acting as a natural preservative.
Cellaring
Store bottles upright in a cool dark place at a stable temperature between 46ºF and 61ºF.
5 to 8 years.
Like good wine, Unibroue’s fine beers have flavors that develop with age. Over time they become smoother, sometimes revealing notes of honey and candied fruit and developing a more assertive and lasting flavor. This phenomenon is known as “maderization” and is similar to the aging process of dessert wines like port.
Preservatives
Oxygen is the mortal enemy of beer because oxidation creates a stale, flat flavor. The yeast added to the bottle of Unibroue products triggers natural fermentation, consuming excess oxygen and preventing the beer’s CO2 from oxidizing. This enhances the beer’s aging potential. The high alcohol content of certain Unibroue products also lends itself well to aging by acting as a natural preservative.
Cellaring
Store bottles upright in a cool dark place at a stable temperature between 46ºF and 61ºF.
adamjackson
Well-Known Member
This is why a lot of beer "hoarders" / cellarers wax their bottles by hand. Reducing oxidation is great when you are aging a bottle for that long.
naiek
Well-Known Member
I drank a 10 year old homebrew, not mine. It was good. Let us know how this is
kenpotf
Well-Known Member
Okay...I'm reporting back. At first open, I took a whiff and it smelled very, very sweet...almost like licorice. I started to pour in the glass and it was red, muddy looking with zero head and little to no carbonation. I swirled the glass a little to see if I could liven up some co2 and nothing. It clinged to the glass like motor oil. I tasted it and it had a very strong varnish taste, so I threw it out. Oh well, this one doesn't age well I guess
adamjackson
Well-Known Member
Okay...I'm reporting back. At first open, I took a whiff and it smelled very, very sweet...almost like licorice. I started to pour in the glass and it was red, muddy looking with zero head and little to no carbonation. I swirled the glass a little to see if I could liven up some co2 and nothing. It clinged to the glass like motor oil. I tasted it and it had a very strong varnish taste, so I threw it out. Oh well, this one doesn't age well I guess
Hmm. Varnish. Very interesting. Well. Hope it was worth it
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Bad seal on the cork I guess. O2 permeability can be an issue with corks. That doesn't say anything about how well the beer ages necessarily.
What did the cork look like?
Ah well. It was an experience, right?
What did the cork look like?
Ah well. It was an experience, right?
LoneWolfPR
Well-Known Member
At the brewery I work at someone brought in a couple cans of Fallstaff's Indy 500 beer from 1984. He had recovered in the back of a closet a few years back of a house he was cleaning up after it had been forclosed upon. Needless to say, it probably hadn't been handled that well up to that point. We cracked one open and poured. It came out golden with no head whatsoever and some weird sediment. It smelled crazy sweet like a sweet mead, and tasted very much the same. We were all shocked. We had expected it to taste completely awful and were pleasantly surprised.
Without knowing if that beer was on a shelf in the sun everyday at ambient temp, its hard to know how it ages. I have 2 bottles of wine from Châteauneuf-du-Pape that I purchased in 2001 that are probably not good either, but they have been stored in my basement in the box since I bought them in France.
TimpanogosSlim
Well-Known Member
So, how exactly do you know what varnish tastes like?
adamjackson
Well-Known Member
It's kind of like guys that review beer and say it smells / tastes like fecal matter and then give it an A rating.
"So, you like fecal matter?"
kenpotf
Well-Known Member
lol...good question...
kenpotf
Well-Known Member
All I can say is that I couldn't take more than a couple of sips of it before deciding to throw it out. So, I know that the beer probably had been stored in a hot warehouse for a while, and then brought in for a while into an air conditioned environment. There's no telling how many times it had been moved around like that. The cork had little to no smell either and it did come out kind of dry though. There was no "smoke" either when I pulled the cork out. It was very lifeless to say the least and the best way I could describe the color is by thinking of the Red River...that's what it looked like.
