How long to leave beer in corny keg under CO2?

[Bayern1987]

I kegged a batch about 2.5 years ago and stored it in my Uncle's shed... inside a small fridge which hasn't been switched on... he has sadly passed away and I am going to get it soon... and I am keen to start brewing again... just wondering what condition the beer will be in and how safe it will be to open? Bearing in mind there has been a couple of summers and winters in between... any advice or input would be greatly appreciated :-D

 

[whoaru99]

What else was in the fridge?

That might be the deciding factor if you even want to go that far.

I've been in the presence of a freezer full of food in someone's garage that conked out in summer and nobody noticed for quite a while. I'd never willingly open another like that if it unless it had been only in freezing weather where nothing had thawed.

Far as the keg itself/safe to open the keg itself, yeah, I think so as long as you relieve any pressure that might be there. Presuming it hasn't ruptured from freezing.

Contents of the keg? My guess is not good, but how far from not good it could be is a wild guess at best with so many factors involved.

 

[gunhaus]

I had three kegs that were partially filled (Not that it matters but they were a 5% stouts, a 5% Blonde ale, and a 6% APA) They had been on gas for service when circumstances forced us to remove them from their home in the kegerator and into a back room in the shop. This room is neither heated nor cooled, but rarely gets down to freezing in winter and rarely above about 70 in summer *( Michigan weather though, so stuff can happen) These sat for 2 years and about a month. I recently let off the pressure in each, and dumped them to clean the keg for use again. ALL of these beers still had a lot of carbonation. Which makes sense with good seals. Both the stout and the blonde actually held an appreciable head for some time in glasses we poured for the novelty of seeing what they looked like. the APA actually still gave a good whiff of Cascade when the lid was pulled. ALL beers looked and smelled fine, the blonde and the stout though did have a pronounced "stale" smell. The APA was quite clear and bright. PROBABLY they all would have been fine to try, but THAT was not on the agenda and no one had drank enough at that point in the night to go the old hold-my-beer-and-watch-this. Rinsed them out, washed them up, sanitized them, and I did add new floating tubes as none of these had them. They are working just fine right now!

 

[whoaru99]

... PROBABLY they all would have been fine to try...

Whether absolutely, 100% true or not I can't say. But, I've read nothing that grows in beer will kill you. How it tastes or other potential side affects may be a different matter.

If it was a high octane RIS put up with good sanitation it might be just right.

 

[PCABrewing]

PROBABLY they all would have been fine to try,

I tasted one (Nut Brown Ale 5.5%) after 18 mos. It was no better than when I pulled it from the fridge and I should add no worse. I wasn't that impressed with the recipe to begin with which is why it sat so long.
Bu if I had been desperate for a beer I could have consumed it, probably just one though.
It sat in a basement that holds 68 degrees pretty much year-round, so it didn't experience any hot weather.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

As I have said before, I left some Sierra Nevada Torpedo in my Florida workshop for a year or so, with no AC. When I tried one, I liked it better than the fresh stuff.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I should also add that when I quit brewing back in '07 or whatever, I had a keg of strong wheat ale in the keezer. Beersmith thinks 8.6%. It sat there for an extremely long time. I can't recall whether it was months or over a year.

Tried some before I poured the keg out, and it was better than it had been at the start. I have a keg of that beer now. Maybe I should pour one.

I get a little nostalgic about this stuff. I miss the Usenet guys. They were great, for the most part. John "Shaggy" Kolesar. The Artist Formerly Known as Kap'n Salty. Denny Conn is still kicking over at AHA.

 

[gunhaus]

Whether absolutely, 100% true or not I can't say. But, I've read nothing that grows in beer will kill you. How it tastes or other potential side affects may be a different matter.

If it was a high octane RIS put up with good sanitation it might be just right.

Oh. I was not worried about getting poisoned. A sealed keg, filled with fully carbed beer is just a big ole can of beer. It was still plenty fizzy and smelled fine. I just really did not need to see if it was really stale or not. I've drank plenty of bottled brews that had "aged" to questionable degrees - and those of lower alcohol and lighter flavors are not always so yummy. None of these had been really barn burners to begin with - and the stout had picked up way to much O2 during a horrible botched closed transfer gone awry. It was already pretty wet cardboardy BEFORE the long sit in a half full keg. I know stouts age well, but extra-aged wet cardboard is just not on my personal menu . . . . Unless the end of the beer and the end of the desire are out of sync, then . .

 

[jeebuscrisis]

I just want to admit to something here. I had brewed up a tart cherry stout (7.8%ish) according to maths. This was in addition to 15 other gallons of beer I made for a buddies wedding. So crunch time comes and I force carb the 15 gallons and bottle it all up and ship it off to my buddies wedding. Sweet.

2.5 years later I'm moving out of my house and my now wife spots this fermenter in the corner of the basement. It was the tart cherry stout with a dried out airlock, tart cherries still at the bottom, and just sitting there with dust on it. I'm thinking we gotta dump it but the wife reminds me of my brewing mantra, "Drink your mistakes, they won't kill you, and you'll get plenty to think about for next time." So we keg it up and I carb it. I will say during kegging I had, erm, concerns about what I was doing. Three weeks later we pull a couple pints and taste it.

It was absolutely amazing. Yeah, it had some funk on it from the tart cherries, some sour notes, but overall was damntastic. We bottled up the remainder of the keg and put them in our cellar. Years later still going I will pull a bottle, chill it to 45f-ish, crack er open and man... It's just amazing how great it tastes.

So anyways, not recommended at all, but if a keg is a bottle and a bottle is a mini keg then I'm pretty sure as long as you got pressure, low O2, good temperatures you can stash away beer for awhile. I should note that I would never try to cellar age any lagers/wheats/pales, but for heftier ABV and especially hoppy beers (hops are preservative, yo) and darker brews you can get away with quite a bit.

 

[BongoYodeler]

A friend of mine brewed and bottled a barleywine back around the mid 80's and gave me a few bottles. In 2011 we were selling our house and I found one last unopened bottle in a box in our cellar. The basement stayed consistently around 63F degrees year round. I called him up to ask if it'd be safe to drink. His only reply was try smelling it, if it smells OK go ahead and drink it. I drank it and remember it being very good.

 

[day_trippr]

any advice or input would be greatly appreciated :-D

Have someone else open it

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

All this makes me wonder how much of the accepted wisdom about old beer is really wisdom.

Tonight I'm drinking an amber lager I brewed in early October, so it's over 4 months old. Before I poured it, I was thinking I needed to drink it because it was getting old and hadn't been quite as good as I had hoped.

It's better now than ever. The balance has improved. It goes down like iced tea.

The taste is super clean, so I guess I did a good job keeping oxygen out.

 

[whoaru99]

The difference between some presented scenarios and the op's is temperature stability.

I've aged beer like RIS, quad style, barleywine beers in my basement for years and they were fine, better than fresh usually. But, it's fairly cool and temp stable and a beer type that lends to aging.

 

[beren]

It very much depends on the style. You wouldn't want a 10 year old New England IPA, but stronger/darker beers get better with some age. I just had the last bottle of my first beer, Belgian white that fermented a bit warm and was a banana bomb. Made Aug 2021. No banana left, but not a tasty beer anymore either. The Irish Red I brew https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/irish-red-1st-place-hbt-comp.141086/ is much better after 3-4 months, so is my dry Irish stout.