Ok.. so as home brewers don't pasturize, how long does it keep?

Ok, So I've got a couple batches under the belt, but never realy considered spoilage untill I read a thread here.

How long does HB keep in a Corney Keg @ 42 deg F in a fridge?
And for the second part how long would a HB keep in Keg/with CO2 but at room temp?

Granted I don't think I'm close at this point as my oldest is only 8 weeks old.

But I anticipate my Heff might take a while to finnish 5 gal as I like my other beers better and they aren't so filling....

With summer... hopefully coming soon... I'd like to make some lighter beers in preparation, but only have room for 2 in the fridge and with my M&J going to 2ndary this week then to keg in 2 more weeks... I may have a storage problem come March/April with more in the pipeline than I'm drinking...

Yea yea I know... you all would be willing to help me with the "Oversupply" situation, but I think I'll try and manage on my own for now, but I also don't want any of it to go to waste.. So if it might spoil, I'll accelerate the consumption and throw another party to speed the draw down.

So how long do yours last before spoiling?

A lot longer than you think. The hops in the beer act as a natural preservative, and as long as it is not exposed to light or oxygen, it will keep almost indefinitely. Those "born-on dates" from BMC are just marketing ploys. I've never had a beer spoil from too much age.

Good question.

First off, let's stop talking spoiling here, what we're really talking about is "aging". Strong beer can age just like wine. As a general rule, the higher the alcohol, the longer it will continue to improve.

Anything around 6 or 7 percent will get better for a year or longer. For every percent above that, you can probably add another year or two of aging. Once you hit 11 or 12 percent, it will probably age almost indefinitely, but won't improve much beyond a couple of years. You may notice, however that hops aromas and flavors will dissipate as the beer ages.

Lower alcohol beers, 2 to 5% will still improve over the course of 3 to 12 months or so. They will be drinkable for quite some time after that, they just will no longer be improving with age. The only exception I can think of being hefeweizens which tend to peak when they are very young... around 6 to 8 weeks out of primary as I recall... and go downhill pretty fast after that, getting pretty disappointing after about 3-5 months, IMHO.


This assumes, of course, proper sanitation procedures.

I don't know about kegs and spoilage...but it is rare that a bottle of beer will "spoil" if by spoil you get infected or moldy or something...It's flavor profile may peak but it won't go bad.

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.

It's going to really depend on the style and the recipe...Barleywines may not even come into their own for years and if properly stored may be good for decades.

I've tasted year old bottles of beer, and none of them had gone downhill either.

Never had any spoil. It doesn't really need to be pasteurized, barring an infection beer will just get stale or oxidized - it shouldn't spoil. Even pasteurized commercial beer gets stale.

Good beer (homebrew included) is like wine and gets better with aging and decent attention. Crappy pasturized, overfiltered mass produced wee waters become even less tasty with time because there is not much there to begin with and it doesn't keep well without a balance of ETOH and hops to keep the mean bugs away.

I heard a Jamil show episode the other day, where he pulled a 5 year old bottle of Scottish 60 /- out of one of his storage boxes, entered it and won the category.

A well brewed beer, brewed with fresh ingredients, in properly cleaned and sanitized equipment (especially the bottles) will hold up for years. I may not be as good as when it was botted, but it will still be good beer.

I pulled a 20-month old bottle of my Black Pearl Porter out a few months ago. Carbonation was still perfect and it was delicious.

CO2, alcohol and hops are not a friendly environment for growing bacteria.

Worst case is that the beer will spoil due to oxygenation at bottling time. That’s why I always cap on foam (CO2 foam) and use oxygen barrier caps.

A lot of beers will move past their prime over time…an APA will lose its dry hop aroma, an IPA’s flavor diminishes as hops flavor and bitterness fade, the unique flavors of a Belgian yeast strain and the “raw” nature of a good wheat beer will tend to get too “clean” after time. I pulled out an American wheat that was about 12 months old and it was crystal clear. Tasted great…but much more like a pilsner than a nice cloudy wheat.

I’m still pulling out a bottle of our 888-RIS from last year at a rate of about 2 a month. Talk about awesomeness.

A little off topic but I have 2 bottles of Buttweiser that have a born on date the same as my sons 9-2-99 and they have some serious floaters in them. In 12 more years on his 21st birthday I'll let you know how they turn out. Stay Tuned

bandt9299 said:

A little off topic but I have 2 bottles of Buttweiser that have a born on date the same as my sons 9-2-99 and they have some serious floaters in them. In 12 more years on his 21st birthday I'll let you know how they turn out. Stay Tuned

Click to expand...

You need to brew up a nice big Barleywine right now for the occasion.

+1 to what everyone else said, you will loose hop profile over time but other than that it should be good for a long time.

great thread, glad to have read it. further +++'s pushing me to buy some corny kegs....

I dont have a beer fridge, and I cant fit 6-10 cases of beer in my regular fridge, so I have to leave them in room temp storage. I put a twelve pack in every so often, but most of them stay out. How long will bottled beer stay good at 70-75*F or so?

I have some of my early extract batches that were bottle conditioned. They are over 2-years old. They are still good.

One note...make sure you have let the beer completely ferment and condition before bottling. Extended storage in bottles at room temperature can create some residual fermentation if the beer didn't ferment out thoroughly. This will leave you with gushers and very dry beer.

I'm curous about this also. To add onto that is there a limit you can keep beer even in a fridge?

Are there styles that don't keep for long times?

I just want to point out that while none of us homebrewers pasteurize (and we shouldn't), but there is "good reason" why BMC do -- it allows their beers to be handled in some pretty crappy ways and not taste so much worse than they otherwise would taste. I've worked in grocery and convenience stores when young & seen some badly treated beer. If our homebrew was handled in some of these lousy ways, it would start to taste bad.

But like everyone else has said, if you treat your homebrew well, it'll last a long time.

Age isn't a problem at all, finding time to keep the supply ahead of the demand is the problem! I wish a few would survive, even a few months, just to see what would happen!

When I started brewing a few years ago, I did my first batch with a buddy that used to brew before he had kids. He dug out his equipment from his basement and found a number of bottles that must have been 8 years old. He dumped them out so we could refill them, but put two in the fridge for us as an experiment. I think he is still kicking himself around the block for dumping those after we drank the last two. They tasted great.

On a side note, I've started pulling a 6 pack out of every batch, and a 12 pack if I feel particularly good about the beer. I plan to sit on these extra beers until they hit at least 6 months to check back and see how the age is treating them. It makes me sad not to have left the whole batch alone for longer.

Just popped a 2006 christmas ale open the other night that my buddy had brewed. In '06 it had too much of a ginger flavor but the other night it tasted much better.

I brewed a pumpkin ale back in august of 08 and it's now just getting really good, i've saved a case for next October because I have a feeling it will be even better then.

I've never had the final pint not be the best one of the batch. In other words, I haven't even found the peak age for a brew yet, let alone the decline.

whats this aging talk??? Around here it goes like this: Bubbles.....Check, alcohol.....Check, lets drink it.

By the way... You guys that ***** that you have to much beer in your pipeline make me sick....I think i speak for everyone. Now thats a problem i want