Salvaging an unbottled ale?

Around November of last year, I brewed a 5 gallon batch of BierMuncher's OktoberFAST Ale. I try to make a true Marzen each year, but got too late of a start last year. It was ready to bottle in early December..... and has sat in my secondary fermentation vessel (a 6 gal glass carboy) in a dark corner of my basement ever since. A tragedy, I know! Life got busy, excuses, excuses.

The beer still looks and smells good. I plan to taste it this weekend, and if it doesn't have any off-flavors, I'm going to bottle it. My question is, do I need to add additional yeast before bottling, or will the original yeast become active again once the beer is mixed with some priming sugar?

Thank in advance!

 

Just to be safe, I would probably say to add a half-pack of a neutral yeast.
Your original yeast may still wake up with new fermentables, but there;s no way to be certain on a homebrewing scale.

 

You could bottle as-is with the appropriate amount of priming sugar and see what happens..give it a couple weeks and see if it starts carbing..

If that doesn't work, you can try opening them up and adding a tiny pinch of dry yeast and then recapping. I know people who do this in each bottle in situations like this and it seems to do the trick..although I have no personal experience so I cannot tell you exactly how much yeast to use.

 

I would add the yeast. It is a step that will not hurt, if unnecessary, and could save you the steps of bottling then opening all the bottles to add yeast....

 

Re-yeast at bottling with the same yeast it was brewed with. A higher attenuating yeast might cause overcarbonation and bottle bombs.

 

Thanks for all of the replies! I'll add some of the original yeast with the priming sugar before bottling. Thanks again!