What's the longest you've ever aged a homebrew?

[tenglert]

Last year, in the back of a closest, I found a 6 pack of my first two batch that I brewed in 94.

One was a stout and the other was a bitter. When I tried them, they both tasted the same. Like caramel but not sweet. There was no hop flavor at all, and there was a smooth, warm alcohol sensation down the throat.

It was pretty good. I wish I had some more.

 

[Clayton]

I'm thinking that Jan-2010 will be the magic turn-around date. Just give it time..."you can't rush your beer".

LOL ,, i dont know why but when i read that i busted up laughing!

thats what i would tell the Guinea pigs over the years , when thay would start scratching around for more homebrew, i would hand them that barley wine and after they made the face like , some one served them poop tea steeped in gym sockes , i would say; well it just needs to age a little longer

 

[Jaybird]

I have some 6 year old mead and a keg of Blonde ale that I brewed 2 1/2 years ago. It was bad so I wanted to do some testing on it. It is quite drinkable at this point.

 

[tspilker]

It would have to be very big, and not rely on hop flavor or aroma as a characteristic. Those would surely fade inside of 1-2 years.

A Barleywine would be the best bet. But it would need to be big...be allowed to ferment out completely to avoid bottle bombs, and held in a cool environment like a 45 degree cellar.

Sounds like we should do a 02-22-20 barleywine brew.

 

[svengoat]

I opened the 3 year old guinness knock off last night and it's going south on me.. It mellowed out nice but there is a distinct nastiness on the trail end.. Maybe it was best after a year..

 

[cee3]

I have a box that's been buried in my basement for years with a few bottles from my earlier brewing life, 1990 and 1991! A pale ale, an altbier, a pilsener, a "Christmas" beer. None of them is a "big" beer so I don't hold out much hope for them. They weren't great back then.

In that same box I found a bottle of Bell's Third Coast Old Ale from 1991, a couple of Thomas Hardys from 1994 and a couple of Sam Adams Triple Bocks from 1995. Those are more likely to have survived and will be interesting to sample. Well, they'll all be interesting.

 

[Stevorino]

I left a couple kegs of old homebrew around for 9 months -- all of it was infected to some degree except one keg of robust porter -- which was just as good as I remember it 9 months ago.

 

[Revvy]

I have a box that's been buried in my basement for years with a few bottles from my earlier brewing life, 1990 and 1991! A pale ale, an altbier, a pilsener, a "Christmas" beer. None of them is a "big" beer so I don't hold out much hope for them. They weren't great back then.

In that same box I found a bottle of Bell's Third Coast Old Ale from 1991, a couple of Thomas Hardys from 1994 and a couple of Sam Adams Triple Bocks from 1995. Those are more likely to have survived and will be interesting to sample. Well, they'll all be interesting.

Oh wow, Third coast is one of my favorite old ales...I bet that one is awesome....uh....wait, It might be infected, so you should hand it over to me for proper disposal...I know you've heard this before by posers, but I can assure you that I AM official and credentialed.

 

[BrewBrain]

14 month old pale ale. Awesome.

 

[Figbash]

I had an Imperial Stout that lated two years. The conditioning seemed to peak at about a year and after that it was super smooth and one of the best I've had. That reminds me, it's past time to brew another batch.

Tom

 

[Southwood]

RIS from 2006 is getting crazy good, 2006 pumpkin beer is still crazy bad.

Cheers

 

[bashe]

I have not been brewing long enough to have any beer saved up for long, plus I keep drinking it. I do have two bottles for my second batch a strawberry wheat that is about nine months old, I'm afraid it probably has not held up.
I do have a friend that stopped brewing about 12 years ago and I had an abbey ale he made back then and it was amazing. I also had a chrismas beer he made back then, he had used orange peel and used too much, it was still bad.

 

[Ceedubya]

4 years on a lager (forget the recipe).

This was a kit from the local brew supply store. I brewed it before we moved into our current house, and thought that I had drank all of it.

I got back into brewing last fall, and found 8 of these bottles in a box that had been sitting under a bunch of bottle boxes in our storage room in the back of the house. Certainly not tempterature controlled, it gets hot in there in the summer and cold during the winter. But the beer was much better than I remember it, except it seemed way over carbonated.

 

[bruin_ale]

I just started brewing again after a relatively long hiatus. My kegerator broke, so I stopped brewing rather than bottle. There was one keg left in the kegerator, it's a pumpkin stout that I brewed for xmas 2007. There's still about 2/3 left and I haven't tried it yet, but I think it'll probably be pretty good. I'm thinking about trying it to be sure it's good and then putting it aside for this halloween/thanksgiving/xmas.

 

[wild]

The last bottle of my Belgian Strong Dark Ale and my Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout Clone were finished on their 4th anniversaries.

 

[OrlandoHomeBrewer]

I had an ESB that lasted about 18 months before I drank the last bottle. It was excellent.

The guy at my LHBS told me this weekend he had some 10 year old apfelwein that was excellent.

 

[wbgv]

back on New Years eve,a friend brought 2 bottles of Russian Imperial stout that he found back under his basement steps that he bottled in 1992...I wish he could find more as it was absolutely FINE !!

 

[fastricky]

I brewed a huge Stout in '99 but the Y2K bug terminally crashed it.

 

[cee3]

Oh wow, Third coast is one of my favorite old ales...I bet that one is awesome....uh....wait, It might be infected, so you should hand it over to me for proper disposal...I know you've heard this before by posers, but I can assure you that I AM official and credentialed.

That sure looks official, Beer Inspector. I better dig that one out and send it along for testing. ;-)

 

[Jaymo]

Although it wasn't mine, I just had a bottle of vanilla mead the other night that a friend brewed in 2000. It was awesome!

As far as my own brew goes, I brewed a batch of porter around 6 years ago. The weekend I was planning to bottle it was when I met my wife, and put off bottling it until the next weekend. We ended up spending that weekend together too, so I put it off again. It was in a secondary, so I figured another couple weeks wouldn't hurt it. Well, this went on until it got put into the corner of the basement and forgotten. I just opened that carboy 2 months ago when I started brewing again!

I was expecting something funky, but it actually didn't smell/taste bad. I didn't carb it, but tried some before cleaning it out. I was expecting some serious infection or at least a ton of oxidation since the airlock water had evaporated, but it wasn't too bad. Maybe I should've bottled it, but I was too anxious to start brewing again, so it got sacrificed to the drain.

 

[HoppyDaze]

I plan on saving at least a 22oz or a couple of 12oz bottles from each batch. Tuck them away and drink on special occasions

 

[Mutilated1]

I still have at least 24 probably more 22oz bottles of my Christmas 2006 stout.

 

[KingBrianI]

Just tasted my last bottle of my first batch of Edwort's Haus Pale ale and it was awesome. I used amarillo in that batch instead of cascade and was amazed that the aroma was still very strong, as soon as I popped the top I smelled it. It had smoothed out and was just really nice. The head was much better than I remember too, strangely. It pillowed up like a belgian and left a little raft in the glass the whole way down. Very nice!

 

[Saccharomyces]

I had a bottle from my first batch the other day (14 months going on 15 months old now). It was brett contaminated at this point... no body, off flavor, foamy. I ended up dumping it.

Soperbrew shared a bottle of year old Bee Cave Haus Pale Ale from his library that was his first AG.. THAT was a fine brew. I was amazed the aroma and flavor held up. Unlike my old brew, his wasn't contaminated.

 

[dwight_k]

I found a bottle of stout that I brewed about 15 years ago...tasted great!
DK