12 yr old home brew.

A stout, ESB, IPA, and red. So....do I try it????

Uh. Hell yeah!!

Hell yes you try it!

I will try it for you if you would like.

Greatest thing I've ever seen. No idea what's what except for two stouts. St. P's day! Better be good.

Why would you even have to ask?

12yrs is a long time. I don't even know what the shelf life is for a home brew.

IanPC said:

A stout, ESB, IPA, and red. So....do I try it????

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Wow, so jealous..

Do you have any friends who homebrew or appreciate beer? I'd have to share something that special.

Did you Dry Hop with the 12 year old, or was it an boil addition?

My best friend made made them, he gave me 6 12 packs of bomber bottles and 6 of the bombers were unopened. I was stoked for the empty bottles and then He dropped that gem on me. I can't wait! Good or bad. Gonna be an experience. I hope they don't geyser. Either way...it's gonna be tried. I just didn't know if they'd be gross.

I want all of them shared...you have to...this is the most random find I've ever seen. And in a constant basement temp. 64-70 deg, never chilled.

Post pics,drink em.

jonmohno said:

Post pics,drink em.

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You got it!

MyNameIsPaul said:

Did you Dry Hop with the 12 year old, or was it an boil addition?

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My pot isn't nearly large enough for a 12 year old addition. 12 months maybe...

I hadn't brewed since 2002 until recently. I was looking at old bottles and equipment and found a one liter flip top which is also full. I think it dates from around 2000. No clue as to what is in it. Been wondering whether to pour it out or try it.......guess y'all decided for me!

I had a couple ten year old nut brown ales last month, really good

IanPC said:

12yrs is a long time. I don't even know what the shelf life is for a home brew.

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Beer doesn't go "bad" unless your sanitization is weak.

Homebrew is no different from commercial beer. Properly stored it can last and be drinkable for 100s of years.

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.

I just had this expericence not too long ago... We tried 48 year old beer today. One was interesting and drinkable, and one was gnarly.

Mbowenze has a thread about tasting an over 100 year old beer recently. And In my history thread there's a video of the OZ and James Drink to Britain tv series where they taste a beer older than that.....one that goes back to Napoleanic times iirc.

It all depends on how they were stored.

Well Ian....how was it?

Haven't tried it yet. Waiting for the chilluns to go to sleep.

I thought I still had a few bottles left of my old home brew from my first tries at it about 15 years ago but when I looked all I found was 15 year old Corona. All those years I thought it was homebrew. I have some 3 or 4 year old nut brown ale that wasn't so good to begin with.

And 5 bombers later, he's toast...

Haha, or dead.

dfc said:

Haha, or dead.

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Yeah! And I don't want to try that one of mine until I find out if he lived or not!

So how was it?

I survived. The stout was pretty good, an did not geyser. Lots of carbonation, very nice flavor, a little maltier than I like, but not a big deal. I did fail to take pictures.
There are 5 more and I will not neglect the pics next time.

Definitely had a great mouth feel to it. It was definitely a unique flavor in a stout. I was very pleased.

No stomach ache or anything?

alcohol doesnt make you sick,unless you indulge too many or are allergic to beer.

Nope...had a great texture, and flavor was good too. Can't wait to try the IPA.

IanPC said:

Nope...had a great texture, and flavor was good too. Can't wait to try the IPA.

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Which will probably be more like a pale ale.

No, it's not worth trying. I suggest you send it all to me for proper disposal.

I have a barleywine that's more than 15 years old. I opened a bottle last year and it was fantastic! So I opened another and it was nearly as good. Drinkable, but nothing to write home about.

My dad made his last batch of homebrew in 1999. I think I still have a few old bottles of that coffee stout left, I should break them out. They are bottled in old (pbr) quart bottles, so I gotta make sure I'm in the mood for it!

I wish I could make mine last even half that long! I usually can't even get past the green beer time frame! LOL Ya ya need a pipe line but I brew almost every week a 5 gal batch and it always seems to disappear.

I will say, it had quite the flavor.

I have an NB caribou slobber brown on deck, then a deadringer IPA. Dry Irish stout in the fridge now.

Pics? I'm so interested in this thread. The oldest homebrew I've had was two years old. Not bad, but not good because it was from my second batch. I keep hoping I'll find some IPAs or Pumpkin beers somewhere in my house that I accidentally hid.

Found an old homebrew of my dad's a few years ago. It was about 25 years old since he stopped brewing in the mid-80s. It was refrigerated the entire time. I (stupidly) popped the cap while holding the bottle over a drawer of kitchen utensils. The bottle immediately, IMMEDIATELY erupted into a foam volcano, spewing rank stale beer foam all over the kitchen before I made it to the sink. My mother was not pleased.

The moral of this story, if the bottle and process was not thoroughly sanitary when you bottled it 12 years ago, you may have an infection, causing a wonderous foam volcano of your own. You have been warned.

I'm curious to see how the hop flavor and aroma held up in the IPA. Cool thread.