How old is too old

How long does home brew in bottles last in the refrigerator?

I've never pushed it. My brews always got better and better, never peaked and started going downhill (aside from losing hops aroma). At least 6 months, but lots of beers get better and better from aging, even into years. A friend of mine brewed a Belgian tripple and it was bad after 6 months, good after a year, and great after 18 months.

Does anyone let beer sit around until it is bad? Mine only sits around until it is enjoyed .

Beer doesn't go "bad" unless your sanitization is weak. Since nothing PATHOGENIC can exist in beer/wine/cider/mead, there should never be a reason to ever fear tasting something like this, no matter how old it is. Yeah, it may taste like crap, it may be vinegar, but NOTHING that could happen, could ever cause harm to anyone.

Beer is really no different than wine, homebrew or otherwise. 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.

Mine last about 2 weeks....

I'm curious about those "born on dates" and best by dates. It seems they give a window of a few months or so.

I drank a 12 year old home brewed stout. It was never refrigerated. It tasted ok. I would look up what types are good for cellering.

Born on dates (IE: Budweiser) have that there because there is almost no grain wort a darn in it. The beer loses its taste quickly so they want you to drink it fresh. Beers like Pliny the Elder have a fresh hop taste and are not to be stored as the hop character will begin to fade quickly. I cloned Flying Dog's Gonzo Porter 8 months ago. It came out at 9.6% abv. It still tastes amazing.

IPA's and wheat beers are the only ones I'm aware of that may not be as good aged.

So what makes them better by aging? If something very choppy like an IPA is better fresher, and the watery thin lagers are best sooner, what defines a 'better with age' beer?

Frige said:

Mine last about 2 weeks....

Click to expand...

:cross: How do I like this one twice?

hinkle said:

:cross: How do I like this one twice?

Click to expand...

Second that

In my experience, the bigger the beer, the better it is with age. IPAs are better fresh because tue hops fade. Anything that is supposed to be focused on flavoring and/or aroma hops needs to be drank relatively fresh. Some other styles are also meant to be drank fresh, like bitters. Barleywines, imperial stouts, old ales, quadrupels/abts are all best aged.

I made an RIS with my dad on Father's Day in 2011, I still have just a couple bottles left. It has only gotten better with age. I plan to have one with him this Father's Day at 2 years age, and if any are still left after, I might try to keep one for next year as well.

One thing I found hilarious when looking up mead recipes online some time ago was coming across a recipe for polish mead where the last step said, and I quote, "age for 5 to 100 years."

about a year ago a friend shared some barleywine with me. they were made in 1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2004. they were smooth as silk, and very tasty

i have some goat scrotum ale that i brewed about 15 years ago(unrefrigerated). i tasted it in October of 2011 and it was surprisingly good. a little oxidation but i was very excited so my buddy convinced me to chill another....bummer, it was vinegar-ish. that one was due to poor sanitary conditions.

on the other hand, many of my lower gravity beers are not as fresh tasting after 9 months.

Bigger beers and more complex beers seem to almost require aging to be all they can be. Barleywines, RIS's, Dubbels/Trippels/Quads, complex/imperial stouts all benefit from aging. Anything that when bottled tastes green or off usually taste better when given time. Aging is also called conditioning, and you can read up on the benefits of conditioning.

True, the oldest homebrew I have had was ~2 years old, but it was still good. It will not go bad since it is pasturized in the boil and only 'infected' with the yeast you desire when you ferment. When packaged the yeast that remains will carbonate (if you naturally carbonate) and otherwise can clean up some off flavors from fermentation. Then with age the flavors meld and blend like they do in a casserole which is why they are better as leftovers. and some other flavors mellow out over time which allows the rest of the flavors to develop.

All in all, I highly reccomend you maintain a stock of a few of your back beers so that you can taste the progression of your brewing skills and remenisce back to past brews. I am just sad that I only have a couple bottles left from my early batches.

BTW. aging in the fridge will clear the beer quicker, but slow down the hop fade and conditioning.