How Long Are My Beers Good For

[biggerthanyou83]

After you bottle your beer how long are they good for? And if i keep them in the fridge will they last longer?

 

[Yooper]

I don't know how long exactly- it would depend on the beer itself and the recipe, etc, but some beers start to lose flavor after a few months (like IPAs and hefeweizens). They don't go "bad" really, but lose some quality. Some beers, like barleywines, probably start to lose flavor in a few years. Most beers are in the middle, and probably don't improve much with age so are best when less than a year or two old.

Keeping them in the fridge would definitely slow the aging process. Beer ages slower at fridge temperatures.

 

[Vuarra]

I don't know... I've never let beer last that long.

I have had one in the primary for 6 months, if that helps.

 

[Revvy]

To put it in perspective, in the Dec 07 Zymurgy Charlie Papazian reviewed bottles of homebrew going back to the first AHC competition that he had stored, and none of them went bad, some had not held up but most of them he felt were awesome...We're talking over 20 years worth of beers.

This is a great thread about one of our guys tasting 4-5 years of his stored brew.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/revisiting-my-classics-160672/

Some beers are meant to be drunk young, some need to be aged. Some will peak and go down hill, but they won't necessarily go bad, they'll just be different.

 

[kpr121]

In my fairly limited experience (compared to Yooper), my average gravity ales (amber, brown, etc) started losing flavor at around 6-8 months. I havent been brewing for even a year yet so I can't tell you how well some of the stronger beers will hold up, but I can guarantee I will be testing it with the 6 pack of pecan porter (9%) I am saving for this Christmas!

 

[biggerthanyou83]

To put it in perspective, in the Dec 07 Zymurgy Charlie Papazian reviewed bottles of homebrew going back to the first AHC competition that he had stored, and none of them went bad, some had not held up but most of them he felt were awesome...We're talking over 20 years worth of beers.

This is a great thread about one of our guys tasting 4-5 years of his stored brew.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/revisiting-my-classics-160672/

Some beers are meant to be drunk young, some need to be aged. Some will peak and go down hill, but they won't necessarily go bad, they'll just be different.

Whoa...... Thats a long time... thinks for the thread.

 

[gleytch]

I was gifted some "empty" bottles to use for bottling by a friend that had received them from a friends wife after said friends death.

A couple of the cases had homebrew beer in them with "86" written on the cap. The box was lined with a newspaper from July of 1986 so I am going to make the leap in logic that the beer was also from 1986.

The beer looked very good even though I know that the bottles were not stored in any kind of climate controlled environment - just a garage so it would have been subject to yearly swings from <30F to >100F.

Well, of course I had to try it. I put a couple of bottles in the fridge for a few days. When I poured it, it was still extremely well carbonated but tasted fairly vinegary. When I tested the SG, it was almost exactly 1.000.

It would seem that 25 years is a little beyond the storage limit for some beer, especially in uncontrolled storage conditions.

 

[ChshreCat]

My APA tastes like nothing you'd want a second glass of after about 6 months.

My chocolate stout keeps getting better after a couple years.

As said, it all depends on the beer.

 

[maltoftheearth]

Late last year I made an "odds and ends" beer with all sorts of leftovers. The result was ... palatable. I bottled it in October and it is no longer palatable.

A Belgian Blonde that I brewed about the same time tastes exactly the same and ditto for an ale from about that time.

 

[Homercidal]

Found a couple of bombers of "something" from several years ago. Stale, appley, and just "wrong". Nothing I could honestly say that was really bad, but def not something you'd choose to drink. I think they were from 03.

But then again, back then I was probably don't everything wrong!

 

[bmickey]

I have some homebrew from summer 2009 that still tastes good that I kept at basement temps.

 

[hector]

After you bottle your beer how long are they good for? And if i keep them in the fridge will they last longer?

John Palmer recommended in a Podcast that Beer Bottles should be kept cool after Carbonation to protect the

Beer against any probable microbial activity .

Hector