Help - Beer from 2011 in primary - how to bottle

[SilentAutumn]

So in April 2011, I started a smoked wheat beer. For reasons that are not important here, my life became complicated. The beer has sat in my basement since this time. I'm going to bottle it just to see what I have. It very well will be garbage water, but, science. Should I just bottle it as usual or should I do something different? Do a special primer? Add champagne yeast or a new primer mixture to ensure bottle conditioning?

It was a partial mash. I cold smoked the wheat myself. I used Danstar Munich Wheat Yeast.

It's in a plastic pail. Airlock is dry.

Thoughts? Concerns? Suggestions? It will be going into bottles because it's come this far. What suggestions do you all have to salvage this situation?

 

[rupert130]

If you decide to bottle, you can use your normal priming solution. You should probably add some yeast to the beer though. I suggest CBC-1 yeast. I used it recently to bottle a sour and it worked very well.
If I were you, I would pull a sample and taste before I made the decision to bottle. After 5 years with a dry airlock, it is most likely oxidized. It could also be infected. This may be one of the few times that dumping the batch is the right answer.
Good luck with whatever you choose to do

 

[Braufessor]

If I were you, I would pull a sample and taste before I made the decision to bottle. After 5 years with a dry airlock, it is most likely oxidized. It could also be infected.

Yeah - the first thing I would do before I started planning anything is taste it. If it is good, definitely add yeast when bottling. If it isn't good, Just dump it and get a new batch in the works.

 

[burninator]

How long has the airlock been dry? You might have 5 gallons of well aged malt vinegar by now.