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I predict that you will get a wide range of answers to this one. Different styles are going to behave differently, and different people are going to have differing definitions of "bottled your beer properly."

Personally, I have found that most of my brews have actually gotten better with time (up to a point of course). The obvious exception being the really hoppy ones. Caveat: I don't do lagers or hazies or NEIPAs and I do take a couple of extra oxygen-mitigating precautions with IPAs and DIPAs.

Anyway, I've rarely had a batch last longer than about 7 or 8 months, and none of those were left at ambient temperature for more than about 3 months (including primary fermentation and bottle conditioning). The 7 month old nut brown ale was much better than it was at 3 months. The 8 month old DIPA was definitely well past its prime.
 
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Generally, the bigger, higher alcohol beers will last longer. Imperial stouts, barleywines, some of the big Belgians. Some of those styles actually improve with age.

For lower ABV beers (and hoppy beers), the shelf life is much shorter. I wait until the bottles are fully carbed then put them ALL in the fridge. That buys some time as the cold fridge slows down oxidation effects.
 
I just got back into Brewing after a six-year hiatus. I had beer at my old house still in the basement. Some of those brews, lagers, stout and and Imperial IPA varied from 8 to 10 years old. The ones bottled with standard caps were all fantastic. Using the oxygen removing caps, those tended to be unable to hold pressure and were sort of flat, not completely. But not great. The ipa, which happens to be one I won a contest with, was absolutely out of this world. I wish I had more of that. LOL
 
Dave77 said:
Assuming you have bottled your beer properly, stored it in a cool, dark place, in your experiences, what is the shelf life of a home brewed beer?
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Depends on the beer type if it is a strong beer 6- 8 % and the sanitation was done correctly a year should be easy. If it is weak say 4.2% it should not be beyond expectation to get a year ... that does not mean of course that the taste will be the same as at one month old just that it should be perfectly drinkable
 
Taste might change as it gets older. Sometimes for the better up to a point. So I always try to save a few to see what they do over the course of three to four months. None that have made it that long without being drank are bad. But they aren't the same as when at their peak. Which depending on the beer might be 2 weeks or two months after bottling.

This is really something that will depend on what you like and don't like as well as what type of beer and your methods.

It's unlikely to turn toxic if that's your ultimate worry.
 
BrewTan B is a product out there that is sold for commercial breweries to extend shelf life of their products. After dabbling in low oxygen brewing I found it to also be great at dropping wort crystal clear post chilling on brew day and after cold crashing in fermenter. It's a tannic acid that binds to proteins and drops them out. If you are that worried about shelf life, you could always use this on brew day. For a 5 gallon batch I use around a gram in mash and, 3/4 of a gram at 15 minutes left in boil. Note that it needs to be added 5 minutes before adding whirlfloc or Irish moss. Not a lot of places sell it, but I buy online at Williams Brewing.
 
Dave77 said:
For a generic pale ale recipe for instance, what would you think is 'best case scenario' and 'worst case scenario'?
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Sierra Nevada recommends 150 days with optimal storage conditions for their Pale Ale, so I think that should be taken as the best case scenario since they'll have pretty tight control over bottling conditions.
https://sierranevada.com/faq/what-is-the-shelf-life-of-sierra-nevada-beer/
But really it comes down to what is acceptable to you. I have to imagine that Sierra Nevada makes that recommendation while coming from a position of really high quality standards. Maybe at 6 months there's sufficient loss of flavor to no longer hit the thresholds for acceptable for Sierra Nevada and is no longer quite the same as when it was really fresh, but it could still be quite enjoyable to you.
 
jdauria said:
BrewTan B is a product out there that is sold for commercial breweries to extend shelf life of their products. After dabbling in low oxygen brewing I found it to also be great at dropping wort crystal clear post chilling on brew day and after cold crashing in fermenter. It's a tannic acid that binds to proteins and drops them out. If you are that worried about shelf life, you could always use this on brew day. For a 5 gallon batch I use around a gram in mash and, 3/4 of a gram at 15 minutes left in boil. Note that it needs to be added 5 minutes before adding whirlfloc or Irish moss. Not a lot of places sell it, but I buy online at Williams Brewing.
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what is your process for using Brewtan B? I've got some but never used it. [edit] nevermind, I read the rest of your post. oops.
 
I have heard that beer aging happens a lot quicker the higher the temp above 50-55 (beer/wine cellar temps). So the plusses and minuses happen quicker. Hope this helps. :mug:
 
cmac62 said:
I have heard that beer aging happens a lot quicker the higher the temp above 50-55
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From a HBT topic back in Feb 2023, a couple of "links to links to PDFs" to read more about it:
tl;dr?

1683844148673.png
 
I really have no experience with old beers except a one year barley wine a few years back. I simply can't keep them around very long. So @InspectorJon nailed it. I do have one 1994 Sam Adam's Triple Bock that is approaching 30 yrs old. I bought a case in 1994 and drank all but one over the years. The last time I had one was about 10 yrs ago and as everyone before it they seemed to get better with age. Next year I plan on drinking the last one, it will be 30 yrs old. But I do indeed age meads. And they always improve with age. I have three now that are over 2 yrs old and they keep getting better, while they last.
 
T Murph said:
I really have no experience with old beers except a one year barley wine a few years back. I simply can't keep them around very long. So @InspectorJon nailed it. I do have one 1994 Sam Adam's Triple Bock that is approaching 30 yrs old. I bought a case in 1994 and drank all but one over the years. The last time I had one was about 10 yrs ago and as everyone before it they seemed to get better with age. Next year I plan on drinking the last one, it will be 30 yrs old. But I do indeed age meads. And they always improve with age. I have three now that are over 2 yrs old and they keep getting better, while they last.
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that's interesting. I was serious above about that stout tasting like soy sauce. It was also totally without carbonation, which means it was leaking gas, in both directions. oxidized.
it seems that your beers might have better containment somehow. are they still carbonated when you open them? bottles or cans?
 
I'm worse case scenario , I don't give any thought to minimizing oxygen , keeping the bottled beer in the fridge etc . My beers start to go downhill at 3 months on average ( I just put 'em in the spare room in the house at room temp 72 ish)... got a couple bottles of wee heavy thats 6 months old but even that is past it's prime. I had some of that Sam Adams back in the day ... I should have drank it young too :rolleyes:
 
passedpawn said:
I was serious above about that stout tasting like soy sauce. It was also totally without carbonation, which means it was leaking gas, in both directions. oxidized.
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I opened a four year old commercial bourbon barrel aged stout a couple of months ago that was completely flat but still delicious which struck me as a little weird.
 
Not really qualified to help with this one. Since I started kegging, and then reducing oxygen exposure, my beers have greatly improved. Once tapped, they don’t get much past a month old. I did age a keg of German Black beer for several months once, and it turned out really good.
 
passedpawn said:
that's interesting. I was serious above about that stout tasting like soy sauce. It was also totally without carbonation, which means it was leaking gas, in both directions. oxidized.
it seems that your beers might have better containment somehow. are they still carbonated when you open them? bottles or cans?
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I stored beers in my basement in my previous house, and some of those were bottled in 2013/2014. The ones using those "Oxygen Removing"' caps, were pretty much dumpers. Not quite like yours, they were not ruined. But, carb level was low, and they were not like new. All the bottles that used the normal caps (which are heavier btw) all sealed perfectly and tasted as good as they did in 13/14, if not better.
 
Closet Fermenter said:
Not really qualified to help with this one. Since I started kegging, and then reducing oxygen exposure, my beers have greatly improved. Once tapped, they don’t get much past a month old. I did age a keg of German Black beer for several months once, and it turned out really good.
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I've been kegging for ages now too. But I bottle from kegs in order to put beers away if I want to store them long term and use the kegs for the stuff I'm more likely to serve immediately. It's pretty common for me to bottle stouts and porters I want to age.
 
4Mesh said:
I just got back into Brewing after a six-year hiatus. I had beer at my old house still in the basement. Some of those brews, lagers, stout and and Imperial IPA varied from 8 to 10 years old. The ones bottled with standard caps were all fantastic. Using the oxygen removing caps, those tended to be unable to hold pressure and were sort of flat, not completely. But not great. The ipa, which happens to be one I won a contest with, was absolutely out of this world. I wish I had more of that. LOL
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Wait, so an IPA that was bottled 10 years ago was still good? Damn, I need to find out about that. LOL
 
redrocker652002 said:
I have read many post that hoppy beers like IPA's don't have much of a shelf life at all, so that kinda surprised me. But hey, that's good to know.
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I would say the key is that most modern ipas with a bunch of sh__ floating in them do not have really any shelf life at all. That's by design. It shouldn't really surprise anybody. The entire balance of the beer is designed upon all that crap floating in it and drinking it as young as you can before all that stuff ruins it. The idea is to make the ultimate hoppy beer, WTF ever that is. If you should happen to try to clear it, all bets are off. Not to mention, you've got all that sediment producing additional unwanted flavors.

I'm not talking about bottle conditioned beer here, although I will say that in the case of some Stouts they were also bottle conditioned. For the most part, I bottle from a keg. It's already been forced carbonated and it has already been cold crashed for maybe months in order to clear it perfectly. Take a look at my faux kölsch in the picture of your pint thread. That was just before the keg kicked. Served young, it is cloudy. I do not filter it. If I bottle that young, somebody better drink it fast. But if I wait for a month, bottle it and it'll be fine for years.

Beers have changed over the years, or at least people's perception of them has. People now think that if your nose isn't bleeding from The Hop Aroma that somehow that's not enough. Just look at the guidelines for beers and tell me that any of these current ipas on the market or especially the stuff home brewed, Falls anywhere close to the guidelines. I'm being chastised in another thread because my kölsch isn't traditional enough, yet anybody can Brew ipas with ludicrous specs and that's evidently okay. With all due respect, most of them suck.

Russian River and Dogfish Head have forgotten more about making high gravity, high IBU ipas than most people, including myself, are ever going to know. Take note that their signature brews do not have a bunch of crap bottled and waiting to settle out.
 
4Mesh said:
I would say the key is that most modern ipas with a bunch of sh__ floating in them do not have really any shelf life at all. That's by design. It shouldn't really surprise anybody. The entire balance of the beer is designed upon all that crap floating in it and drinking it as young as you can before all that stuff ruins it. The idea is to make the ultimate hoppy beer, WTF ever that is. If you should happen to try to clear it, all bets are off. Not to mention, you've got all that sediment producing additional unwanted flavors.

I'm not talking about bottle conditioned beer here, although I will say that in the case of some Stouts they were also bottle conditioned. For the most part, I bottle from a keg. It's already been forced carbonated and it has already been cold crashed for maybe months in order to clear it perfectly. Take a look at my faux kölsch in the picture of your pint thread. That was just before the keg kicked. Served young, it is cloudy. I do not filter it. If I bottle that young, somebody better drink it fast. But if I wait for a month, bottle it and it'll be fine for years.

Beers have changed over the years, or at least people's perception of them has. People now think that if your nose isn't bleeding from The Hop Aroma that somehow that's not enough. Just look at the guidelines for beers and tell me that any of these current ipas on the market or especially the stuff home brewed, Falls anywhere close to the guidelines. I'm being chastised in another thread because my kölsch isn't traditional enough, yet anybody can Brew ipas with ludicrous specs and that's evidently okay. With all due respect, most of them suck.

Russian River and Dogfish Head have forgotten more about making high gravity, high IBU ipas than most people, including myself, are ever going to know. Take note that their signature brews do not have a bunch of crap bottled and waiting to settle out.
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Great post. Thank you. I am a big fan of RR Blind Pig and Pliny, so your point about them hit right on the head. I have tried to copy Blind Pig and cannot get it nearly as clear. I might be to impatient, I have been told that before. LOL. As far as styles, I don't much care about that. I like what I like. I had a simple Mosiac IPA that knocked my socks off , but damned if I can remember who made it or where I got it. LOL.

My question to you is, how do you clarify the beer? Cold crash after fermantation? I don't have any way as of right now to do that, unless I put it in my serving keg and stick it in my kegerator and let it set for a length of time. I don't mind doing that if it will help the overall product. I am going to do a bit more research on the aspect of clearing beers.
 
redrocker652002 said:
Great post. Thank you. I am a big fan of RR Blind Pig and Pliny, so your point about them hit right on the head. I have tried to copy Blind Pig and cannot get it nearly as clear. I might be to impatient, I have been told that before. LOL. As far as styles, I don't much care about that. I like what I like. I had a simple Mosiac IPA that knocked my socks off , but damned if I can remember who made it or where I got it. LOL.

My question to you is, how do you clarify the beer? Cold crash after fermantation? I don't have any way as of right now to do that, unless I put it in my serving keg and stick it in my kegerator and let it set for a length of time. I don't mind doing that if it will help the overall product. I am going to do a bit more research on the aspect of clearing beers.
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My problem was more logistics than impatience; I simply couldn’t brew often enough to keep beer around to age. As I have aged, and my work load reduced, I have dedicated more time to brewing and keep a couple kegs in the batters box while one is on tap. I am also working towards outfitting my kegs with floating dip tubes. Both of these have resulted in much clearer beer.
 
Closet Fermenter said:
My problem was more logistics than impatience; I simply couldn’t brew often enough to keep beer around to age. As I have aged, and my work load reduced, I have dedicated more time to brewing and keep a couple kegs in the batters box while one is on tap. I am also working towards outfitting my kegs with floating dip tubes. Both of these have resulted in much clearer beer.
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I put a floating dip tube on my serving keg and it really helps. I like the idea of pulling off the top and really only have an issue when I am down to my last half pint or so. I just am trying to do what you are doing. Have a keg at the ready and available when my other one is done.
 
4Mesh said:
With all due respect, most of them suck.
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You might want to visit this thread and rant over there. You will find lots of emotional support for your passionate view on the subject. I like them both, clear and hazy, as long as they are done well. The ones that are hop flavor driven do not last as long on the shelf. Tastes have changed a lot over the years. I am guessing a lot of people would find the beer that was brewer 100 or 200 years ago disgusting and think it was contaminated. But there is a whole following for that sort of thing now, they call it funky or wild. I don't much like it but that does not make it bad or wrong or defective. I would guess those beers might change a lot if stored a long time.
 
I'm ok with him "ranting" here ... his point was valid as to hazy/juicy types of IPA's/APA's and the possible need to drink them young ... if you like that sort of crap :p .
 

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