old age effect on beer

[andycook]

I have beer celebrating their first birthday and more. Some things I've noticed that I wonder about. I'm have 50-75 batches experience over 3 years.

How long do you keep homebrew beer around? I drink a bunch early on then get stingy with the ones I like and try to hang on to the last few for as long as I can.

a) some batches become more carbonated over the long run. The carbonation is fine the first few months but the ones I dig out seem to be quite happy foamers. I use priming sugar and bottle condition and use the oxygen absorbing caps

b) some batches develop a taste over time that is different than intended. Fine when drinking early in their lives. I haven't figured out if it some grain or malt coming forward or hops fading. It is a little like wet cardboard. A little like band aid. But a sharp note.

Thanks for listening.

 

[Big Monk]

I have beer celebrating their first birthday and more. Some things I've noticed that I wonder about. I'm have 50-75 batches experience over 3 years.

How long do you keep homebrew beer around? I drink a bunch early on then get stingy with the ones I like and try to hang on to the last few for as long as I can.

a) some batches become more carbonated over the long run. The carbonation is fine the first few months but the ones I dig out seem to be quite happy foamers. I use priming sugar and bottle condition and use the oxygen absorbing caps

b) some batches develop a taste over time that is different than intended. Fine when drinking early in their lives. I haven't figured out if it some grain or malt coming forward or hops fading. It is a little like wet cardboard. A little like band aid. But a sharp note.

Thanks for listening.

As far as b) is concerned, you are going to get oxidation over long periods of time. Specifically through the cap seal. No way around it. Hop flavor and aroma will fade, long term oxygen ingress through the cap will affect the beer, and overall staling and oxidation flavors will creep in.

 

[mongoose33]

BTW, w/r/t your second issue, that cardboard type taste IS the result of oxidation. If you've brewed something you really like, the best answer is to drink it up, and then brew more.

 

[RM-MN]

a. I think you have a wild yeast infection from the air in your house. A very small amount of it will start growing in the bottle and gradually overcarbonate. If true, the only solution is an air filter that utilizes a UVC light to kill off the yeast. I've been fighting this for years. The filter needs to be running nearly constantly to clean the air.

b. All beers change with time. Some get better, some get worse. Oxygen is one of the culprits. Try to limit the oxygen exposure from the time the yeast is pitched until the beer in the bottle is capped. Oxygen does not inflitrate still water/beer very fast but agitation speeds that up immensely.

One of the hints on how long to keep beer is how dark it is. Dark beers (and high alcohol beers) take longer to mature and keep improving for a long time. Light colored beers should be drunk sooner. Oxygen affects the hop aromas too. An IPA or pale ale that is dry hopped will lose nearly all the hop aroma in 3 months.

I don't buy the idea that oxygen gets in through the cap of the bottle. These caps are made of steel, the same material that is used to transport and store high pressure oxygen. For oxygen to get in through the seal, there would have to be a loss of CO2 to counter this.

 

[Big Monk]

I don't buy the idea that oxygen gets in through the cap of the bottle. These caps are made of steel, the same material that is used to transport and store high pressure oxygen. For oxygen to get in through the seal, there would have to be a loss of CO2 to counter this.

I'll have to check our archive of papers, as I'm not sure if it was Budweiser or Miller/Coors who ran the study, but they showed a 7 ppb ingress of oxygen per day over a period of time.

In this case, however, if there was a concurrent low level infection, you would have had active yeast (albeit the wrong kind!) working to limit the effects of the ingress over time.

It certainly isn't the whole story here but definitely to be considered. We'd have to know more obviously, i.e. type of beer, whether the O2 caps were activated prior to capping, storage duration, temperature, etc. to make a full assessment though.

 

[andycook]

I like the idea of just drinking the beer faster.

 

[bierhaus15]

I'll have to check our archive of papers, as I'm not sure if it was Budweiser or Miller/Coors who ran the study, but they showed a 7 ppb ingress of oxygen per day over a period of time.

Ugh, can we stop carrying that corpse around. That info is 30+ years old and even then they said the addition of plasticizers reduced ingress to 0.0ppb per day. With barrier and 02 scavenging caps, 02 cap ingress is not generally concern for products stored for < 1 yr. Maybe if you're buying cheap Mexican caps for sodas. Bigger issues are bottling 02, storage conditions, and hop oil absorption by the bottle cap liner.

To the question, all bottled beers experience oxidation, which can be hastened by brewing process and oxidation therein. One of the biggies is iron; also get rid of all brass in your brewing system, if everything else is in line.

 

[rodwha]

This sounds like an infection. I’ve had this happen a couple times myself with darker beers that begin to develop an odd dried fruit-like flavor after a few weeks. It was recommended that my old bottles may have beer stone issues that sanitizer can’t fix.

I don’t recall what the band aid taste is from. Look around as it’s a definite issue.

 

[day_trippr]

A band-aid character is often associated with untreated chlorine/chloramine content in the brew liquor.
That noted, having experienced that once, I don't think it shows up late...

Cheers!