Eight year old beer still in carboy (pic)

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if its undrinkable pour in in your garden bed (if you have one) it will make killer food for the soil microbes once the alcohol evaporates off, organic soil amendment
 
Subbed "for science reasons" lol. hair of the dog man fill a shot glass and swish. If it's bad spit it out
 
If it was a high ABV DIPA, RIS, barleywine, Belgian Quad or something like that, it would be fine. If you weren't brewing those back then, I'd just dump it.
 
The airlock has been dry for years. That means total oxidation through simple gas diffusion as well as air exchange due to seasonal temperature cycling. I mean, if it had skinned over with a pellicle or something, there'd be a chance that the beer underneath it might be a good sour, but I'm guessing it tastes like moldy wet newspaper at best. Dump it and try to salvage the carboy, no need to taste it because a sniff test will tell you all you need to know to guess the possible flavor. It's a shame that the OP didn't for some reason plug it with one of those waterless silicone airlocks, it has too much headspace too, but there'd be a chance. Then again, Oktoberfest isn't a style intended for long aging.
 
The verdict is in.
I put it in a wine glass thinking it was aged to perfection
I think I'll give it a gravity reading to see where its at...its gotta be done by now :D

I gotta say appearance wise its an awfully pretty beer, maybe one of the nicest I've ever made.

Aroma is something I'm trying to put my finger on. Its a mix of sweet green apple,maybe a slight vinegar, and sorta has a red wine smell to it.

Taste is similar to smell. A little watery with a light red wine sweet alcohol taste. Someone mentioned it might taste like mold which makes me think I can taste a slight mold on the front end but I think its in my head because I'm a little nervous drinking it. I've never had a barley wine and know nothing about them but in my head this is what one would taste like.

Overall I'm on the fence and real close to wanting to keg it just to see whats its like carbed up. What I don't want to do is mess up my equipment for future brews/kegs over one batch....decisions decisions
20180206_113746_resized.jpg
 
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If it doesn't taste infected, then it probably isn't. I say keg it and see how it tastes carbed. Worst case scenario, it's no good and you end up dumping it.
 
JONNYROTTEN said:
The verdict is in.
I put it in a wine glass thinking it was aged to perfection
I think I'll give it a gravity reading to see where its at...its gotta be done by now :D

I gotta say appearance wise its an awfully pretty beer, maybe one of the nicest I've ever made.

Aroma is something I'm trying to put my finger on. Its a mix of sweet green apple,maybe a slight vinegar, and sorta has a red wine smell to it.

Taste is similar to smell. A little watery with a light red wine sweet alcohol taste. Someone mentioned it might taste like mold which makes me think I can taste a slight mold on the backend but I think its in my head because I'm a little nervous drinking it. I've never had a barley wine and know nothing about them but in my head this is what one would taste like.

Overall I'm on the fence and real close to wanting to keg it just to see whats its like carbed up. What I don't want to do is mess up my equipment for future brews/kegs over one batch....decisions decisions
View attachment 556857
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Might be better off priming and bottling it with some champagne yeast to carb it up, rather than risk infecting your kegging gear. I can't imagine there aren't any off-flavors from autolysis. That was secondary, right? Can we get a pic of any yeast cake?
 
Good call on the yeast cake. Didn't even look at it.
Looks pretty nasty.
I "think" years back it had some funky lard like skin on top that was holding steady for a long time till I moved it a long time ago and it dropped out...I could be remembering wrong. It kinda rings a bell type thing. It doesn't appear like anything growing in it

What do you think of it?
20180206_123313_resized.jpg
 
I accidentally made a malt vinegar and forgot about it for 3 or 4 years. It's actually pretty good stuff! I'd try it...
 
Malt vinegar has been mentioned before. I happen to have some and smells and taste nothing like it...I have no idea what I have here
 
JONNYROTTEN said:
Malt vinegar has been mentioned before. I happen to have some and smells and taste nothing like it...I have no idea what I have here
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Well, you could always dose it with some Acetobacter and let it go another couple years. Although I have no idea what you would do with 5 gallons of malt vinegar. I only made a gallon and it seems like it will last me a lifetime...
 
I've been thinking about the smell and how it smells familiar. I think I figured it out.

It smells a lot like brown sugar. If you have some on hand Give it a whiff and that's pretty close to what I have.
Taste wise it has the flavor on a much lower level than the smell.

I guess it kinda makes sense as it was an Octoberfest that has a carmely taste
 
My only real concern I guess would be mold at this point that I'm now nervous about. I don't need to be ingesting mold and get respiratory issues and whatever else it could bring
 
JONNYROTTEN said:
Good call on the yeast cake. Didn't even look at it.
Looks pretty nasty.
I "think" years back it had some funky lard like skin on top that was holding steady for a long time till I moved it a long time ago and it dropped out...I could be remembering wrong. It kinda rings a bell type thing. It doesn't appear like anything growing in it

What do you think of it?
View attachment 556861
Click to expand...
I dunno, that looks better than I would have expected. If you weren't immediately revolted by the taste, I'd say try to carb and chill it. Might be tasty!

On a side note, I've heard of people getting sick from improperly kept kombucha; though after 8 years any mold or whatever may be long dead, the toxins might linger. OTOH, you have a source of moisture there that alone could harbor nasties. Not to mention, creepy crawlies that might lie embedded in the muck.
 
Jayjay1976 said:
. Not to mention, creepy crawlies that might lie embedded in the muck.
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Well...I was just worried about the mold now I'm envisioning "Creepy crawlies"
in "the muck" like walkin through the black muck at low tide
I think my nerves might just make this a dumper even though it doesn't "seem" bad
 
If it is not vinegary, most of the alcohol has probably evaporated before it has reacted to form acid. I don't believe this beer has much alcohol left, given that fermenter has been open for years. You could drink a few liters and report whether u got drunken or not.. Did it lose a lot of volume during the years, not very much because the fermenter is semi full ?
 
ESBrewer said:
If it is not vinegary, most of the alcohol has probably evaporated before it has reacted to form acid. I don't believe this beer has much alcohol left, given that fermenter has been open for years. You could drink a few liters and report whether u got drunken or not.. Did it lose a lot of volume during the years, not very much because the fermenter is semi full ?
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So if it lost alcohol would a gravity reading reflect that with a high reading? I would think so
 
Yes, but the lost volume (water as well as alcohol) would lead to concentration and thus probably higher gravity. So it would be hard to quantitatively analyze it by measuring gravity. Do u know the FG at the end of fermentation? If there has been bacteria or wild yeast during the years they could have affected gravity as well.
 
I'm guessing he's recovering nicely in IC after having his stomach pumped several times.
 
Bottle one up and send it to me, I’ll drink it and we’ll wait and see if I die or not.
 
I once had a 5 year old homebrew that I found like you. I drank it. It wasnt going to win any awards but it was drinkable. Came in handy when I found myself at home yearning for a drink and had Texas snow in day. Who knows what style it was, but it didnt matter.
 
JONNYROTTEN said:
...Gravity came in at 1.011 so there is alcohol present and this was an extract from back in the day so I would think I hit my OG
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Fluid specific gravity in the context of brewing measures the amount of sugar in solution (not alcohol).
As ESBrewer mentioned, you simply can't use the FG in this situation to determine how much if any alcohol is present.

... But I think there probably is :)
Good find!
 
If you are worried about your siphon, just pour it into the keg. I don't think you have to worry about oxidation. ;)
All of the hops must have faded by now, which is probably why it is sweet.
 

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