Beer and Time

[arturo7]

This past weekend, a friend had a BBQ for his brewing buddies. Four of us brought along a few bottles of our homebrews.

The two big surprises were the 4 year old English Ale and my 4 month old Pale Ale brewed with bread yeast.

We were all expecting the worst with the English Ale. The brewer had come across 8 forgotten bottles during a recent garage clean up. Upon inspection he realized these were from a batch he brewed in 2003. Perfect for a brew party, right?

To our amazement the beer was still quite good. There was just a very, very faint off taste at the finish, but it didn't linger. Certainly nowhere near a skunked Heinie.

As for the beer with bread yeast, no one was more surprised than me. This was the last bottle of my first ever batch. When brewing it I killed the Nottingham's and, in a panic, dumped in some Fleishmann's as a substitute. This batch had a serious twang and was only drinkable with a lemon.

I guess 4 months in the bottle mellowed it out. There was not even a hint of the once pervasive twang. It certainly wasn't the best beer at the party but it wasn't the worst either. That distinction went to my Pale that had only been in the bottle 10 days.

 

[zoebisch01]

The 4 year old thing is pretty cool. Fwiw, I posted a while back about my first skunked homebrew. It was my Hefe I made for the 4th. I was out on the deck, grilling, and had a glass of fresh poured Hefe. I got caught up doing something for a few minutes while my glass sat in the sun. Well I returned to a skunk! It happened so fast.

 

[Angry Turtle Brewing]

The 2nd batch I ever made was a Brown Ale. After a month of bottle conditioning, it was on the flat side. Very disappointing. Not wanting the beer to fully go to waste, we drank one flat case of beer, and forgot about the 2nd case. A year later, I rediscovered the 2nd case, and decided to try one. Lo and behold, it was now fully carbonated, and tasted excellent to boot. I brought the rest of the case to a party that weekend and it was very well received.

 

[BayviewBob]

There in no place in my house a beer can hide from me for four days, let alone four years! :cross:

 

[malkore]

I used to make mead with bread yeast. its a little 'dirty' but it works a lot better than people realize.