Six year old homebrew... not terrible

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danlad

danlad

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Found a couple of bottles of a batch from some 6 (I think) years ago that I gave my dad.

If that is what oxidation and autolysis taste like, not bad ;)

So far as I can guess will have been a simplish pale ale, bit of crystal and brown sugar because most of them are...

Like a Fullers Vintage with a couple of years on it, but dryer. Somewhat sherry-ish, slightly cherry-ish.

What is your oldest accidental aged brew?
 
I've purposely left a stouts and porters for 2 years or more for the flavor that the get to then. So smooth to drink then too. Pale ales lose the hop flavor much quicker so I try to have them gone within a few months.
 
danlad said:
Found a couple of bottles of a batch from some 6 (I think) years ago that I gave my dad.

If that is what oxidation and autolysis taste like, not bad ;)

So far as I can guess will have been a simplish pale ale, bit of crystal and brown sugar because most of them are...

Like a Fullers Vintage with a couple of years on it, but dryer. Somewhat sherry-ish, slightly cherry-ish.

What is your oldest accidental aged brew?
Click to expand...

If you mean oxidation as in the effects of oxygen on the beer, the small amount of air in the headspace would have reacted within a few days at most. If you mean oxidation as a chemist might, then there could be more but it would still be somewhat limited in the time it would take.

Yeast autolysis in the bottle would be a rare occurrence. It could happen but doesn't necessarily happen to every bottle. If it did, nobody would drink a properly aged barleywine.
 
I have a few barleywines going on about 2 years now...
 
no you are not going to get sick from old beer. In fact some styles are better with some age on them. I just found an amber ale that was over three years old that I drank last night Any hop flavor has faded out but it was quite nice.

I have Several Belgians that are over 5 years old. They are very tasty.

In fact I just put several in the fridge to drink on Thanksgiving.
 
this summer i stumbled on a few bottles of nut brown porter from 2004. That's 12 years. I put them in the fridge for a few hours. Popped and foamed when opened, (volcanoed) like they did back then. believe it or not, very drinkable.
 
There is nothing to get sick about unless bacteria got in your brew!

Malolactic fermentation is what danlad was prob referring to as to what happens in the aging process, stronger beers age better than light ones IMO, I had some brown ales from 2 years ago and they were a bit stronger as if they were barrel aged on a sherry cask. Not bad but not my cup of tea. I do have some barley wine aging for 3 years already, so waiting for that!
 
Just tapped a 12 month old keg of Maple Bacon Coffee Porter as it was too sharp last year. Perfect this Christmas, mellowed nicely!
 
I just finished off the last of a keg of an English Barleywine that was brewed a bit over three years ago. It wasn't very good when I first tapped it and did not do well in a competition back then. But, 9 months later, it was wonderful. I have been putting it in and out of the kegerator, storing in the lower basement, the garage, etc. Certainly not caring for it in a proper manner. It took a silver medal last month at the ASH Fall Classic. I bottled the last of the keg as I needed space, so there are just a couple bottles left after sending three of them to the Big Beers, Belgiums, and Barleywine competition last week. I generally don't bottle much, but I did find a couple beers that are a few years old in the back of a closet recently and will have to try them and see how they have held up...will report back. I believe the pale and lower ABV beers will not age as well. I think, in general, aging will mellow fusel alcohol flavors, which are more likely to be encountered in high ABV brews. Hop flavors are certainly fleeting, so if those are a key factor in a beer, it won't be the same after even six months.
 
A friend of mine brewed a very tasty raspberry ale that I really liked, and after 10 years (yes, years) he gave me his last 6 pack of the batch. I expected it to be lousy, but it was not bad at all. Even he was surprised...
 
I have some brew in minikegs and in bottles that are several years old...I was going to dump them but I guess I should try them!
 
1994 Double Brown Ale. Haven't had the heart to open it. I don't know why.
It's probably strong enough to have survived but I'm sure it's got some oxidation and next to no hop character left.
 
Made a small batch of barley wine in 2002. Found 3 bottles tucked away in a corner last year. Drank one. Delicious. Saving other two for special occasions.
 
homemaltster said:
Does anyone actually know of somebody who's gotten sick from old beer?
Click to expand...

I drank a 1994 Sierra Nevada Summerfest in 2009. Still quite tasty. Gave me the squirts the next day though. I drank a 1980 Cartwright Brewing (Portland's first Microbrewery) beer last year. Tasted funky. Did not have side effects. I have a 1987 Celebration I am saving for it's 30th birthday next year. It's been cellared.
 
On a similar note, I had a container of liquid malt extract that I used
that had been in the refrigerator for more than 30 years.

It was a Munton & Faison Irish Lager and I was told by my local
home brew supply store that there was no way it was still good.

Turned out to be a very good batch of brew that I shared with
some fellow home brewers. After drinking the beer and getting
their responses, they were very surprised by when I shared the
facts of the 30 year old brew.

Just cause it's old doesn't make it bad.

brewlew
 
I have some that are nearly 3yrs old. Some from when I first got back into brewing. First one was a wheat beer, it is way over carbed now, but still tastes pretty good.
 
but very drinkable, had it kegged and stored in the garage (insulated garage) so it never got over 80 in the heat of summer.


danlad said:
Found a couple of bottles of a batch from some 6 (I think) years ago that I gave my dad.

If that is what oxidation and autolysis taste like, not bad ;)

So far as I can guess will have been a simplish pale ale, bit of crystal and brown sugar because most of them are...

Like a Fullers Vintage with a couple of years on it, but dryer. Somewhat sherry-ish, slightly cherry-ish.

What is your oldest accidental aged brew?
Click to expand...
 
2009, so 7 years old and counting - 10 long-necks of my RIS left from a total batch of 26 still sitting in the cellar, and one in the fridge chilling down for sunday evening.

As it's matured it has married together well, a long way from the 3 pronged attack of nose, flavour, alcohol, to a more harmonious beer.
 
i began brewing back in the early 1980s. I don't think there was even a brew shop in my area other than a guy who sold stuff out of his house. I was about to quit because of the bottle washing and the guy convinced me to buy a 3 keg setup. I kept brewing for a little while after I got married in 87. When I started brewing again about 3 years ago I dug the old kegs out of the back of the garage and 1 was full. I drank about a gallon of it. It was pretty bad, not infected but just old funky tasting. My life flashed before my eyes as I drank it, thinking of all I had been thru in the last 25 plus years :tank:
 
I have 5 bottles of English Barleywine I brewed in 2001 in the basement. Drank one with my homebrew club on the event of a member moving away a couple years ago, when it was 13 years old, and everyone said it tasted great. Aside from storing it well through the years, I'm lucky it was and still is great as I'd only been brewing a couple years at the time.
 
And I've started making a batch of barleywine every winter for cellaring and would like to work on some other cellar-worthy styles to put back for years.
 
Me & a friend each got a six pack of Westvleteren 12 when they sold it in the US on 12/12/12. We get together each year and drink one. Haven't gotten together yet this year, so i guess the oldest I've drank was 3 years old. It seems to get better every year.
 
I have about 6 half liter bombers of Belgian dubbel homebrew.. borderline Belgian quad. Opened one a month ago, it was really good. Very complex. Pretty surprised as it was one of my first batches so I didn't have high hopes for it.

I may save 2 of them, 1 for each of my sons 21st bday. That will be 2035 and 2037. Almost 30 years old by then.
 
When I was brewing more than I could drink in the 90's, I had two walls of a 12' x 12' basement lined with shelves about 5 feet high which were mostly full of the last 6 packs of each batch. There was also a keg system, usually with about 5 kegs serving, and wine racks for about 75 bottles, and storage for cases inside the crawl space hatch. A small table and two chairs were in the middle. Several times I went down there for a drink and came back empty-handed because I couldn't make up my mind.
When I had to move, after about 12 years of filling the space up (and drinking), I started drinking down the supply. It's easier to move empties. Most of the older beers were oxidized and tasted much the same no matter what they started as, a bit like an odd, non-sweet cola. Most were foamers if not gushers. They were still adequate as a cold thirst quencher, if not a taste treat. On 3 or 4, the caps had rusted through. A few beers, the stronger or more recent ones, were still recognizable and fairly enjoyable. Back then, oxygen absorbing caps weren't used much.
I still have a few survivors from that era somewhere in my current crawl space. I don't expect much from them, except the Thomas Hardy Ales from the 90's.
 
I kept a case of very heavy stout for 4+ years. I recently started drinking them, intense barley wine flavor, licorice, raisin, and strong alcohol.
 
Funny story. I brewed a batch for a home brewers competition amongst friends and found myself short on bottles when I remembered seeing a case tucked in the back of a closet under the stairs. Pulled it out and was shocked they were FULL. Had to go look at my log to learn it was a Franken-brew I had made to clean out my stockpile of left-over ingredients. It was the darkest, nastiest creation with an off-the-charts ABV. I then remembered stuffing it away to see if time could make it drinkable. That was TEN years earlier! As a joke I brought a couple bottles of it to the tasting. My entry didn't get much attention from the highly exalted judges - but they FLIPPED over the Franken-Brew! Said this was the stuff they seek-but-never-find, like it was their nirvana! Said it should have been my entry - would've won! I thought they were joking, but apparently not. They wanted to know everything about it. I was embarrassed to tell them what it really was. (I still think it was nearly un-drinkable).
 
I have half a case of 750ml bottles of 2006 Smoked Porter from Alaskan Brewing company, the year they recieved a gold medal I think from GABF.
While not a homebrew, certainly worthy as a beer or is it?
Have no idea what it will taste like...
 
I have some Russian Imperial Stout , bottled June 2010

like a liqueur muscat , about 9% alcohol

still makes head from groschl bottles , would even drink it flat
 
Started brewing around '86 and scored a ton of pop kegs around '94 so that's when I began kegging and never bottled again . . . well, once. Still have about 5-6 cases in the fruit cellar. A while back, I saw this on twitter: https://twitter.com/StanHieronymus/status/587651784568508416?ref_src=twsrc^tfw. Back then, Pierre Celis was blowing folks away with his wit and the talk was that chamomile was a 'secret ingredient'. I had a bunch of pineapple weed (matricaria or chamomile family) growing around the farm so I decided to make a batch using it as sort of a whirlpool addition. Ended up sending Stan a few bottles and he and I both agreed that for a 20+ year old beer there was almost NO oxidation? Thinking that there's something in the pineapple weed that does a good job of scrubbing the o2.

Everything else that's down there tastes somewhat similar (like others have stated) except for the sour mashed wheat beer, it's actually getting better year after year, haha!

Hoppy Trails~
 

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