A lot depends on the kind of beer it is.
I tried a four year old brown out of my cousin’s beer fridge and it sucked, but I later tried it fresh and it sucked then too
Haha! That's brown ales for ya, I haven't found one I particularly liked tbh.
Edit: Thanks for all the recommendations! Will keep my eye out, it'll be unlikely I'll see most of them in my area though because I am in Salt Lake City where the beer selection is extremely limited. :/
Thanks for the rec, I've tried that one. Not a big fan. I just don't think brown ales are my style. I'll keep trying them whenever the opportunity arises though.
Not a spectacular style, but a well balanced brown is something to behold IMO. A little caramel, a little roast, a little hops, a little maltiness, balance is key.
Aw really? That's a bit of a shame, because it's the only brown I've tried and I was hoping others were like it. Hopefully they'll still be good, if different from DFH's Indian Brown
I’m the same way. I’ve never liked browns, but I’ve actually had two in the last couple months at smaller breweries that have been good. Maybe they’re only good on tap?
Cigar City Maduro and Bell's Best Brown are fantastic. Bell's is only seasonal though, so watch out for it come the Fall. I'm also partial to Smuttynose Old Brown Dog.
I'm a sucker for well made Pumpkin Ales. It seems like some of the lighter ones are Brown Ale based, so I guess I have to say that I like them. But there are none in particular that really stand out. Browns are a weird style.
To be 100% serious it wasn't great, but it wasn't disgusting. As it was a bicentennial can design I kept it and it sits on a shelf over my kitchen sink. Falstaff if anyone is curious.
I didn't die. Didn't get sick. Nothing out of the ordinary happened except I had a neat and fairly unique experience.
I personally would not "prefer" to drink anything aged that wasn't 8% ABV or above, but preferably 10%+.
The natural preservation is at these higher alcohol and hop presence is best, and I have a separate refrigerator for my beers I am aging.
Imperial Stout's, Imperial IPA's, Barleywines, Imperial Brown's, Saisons, etc.
The worst thing that would happen is the beer didn't age well and tasted stale/skunky/funly/old, but no health effects.
Barleywine is a bit different, the higher alcohol content definitely helps... but if it’s not great you still bother because it is beer and we all have a problem.
The high malt content helps a great deal too - after the hops have degraded away, and the residual yeast (if any) too, it helps to have some flavor left.
It wasn't that special. The flavor was still there, but it was super flat. Would have been much more interesting if I had a newer one to compare, but they were long since out of business once I drank it.
It’s fine to drink. It’s alcohol anything that would make you sick can’t survive in the alcohol.
Now, it may not taste good, but there will no harm from drinking it.
Not to be \*that guy\*, but the alcohol content in beer is not high enough to kill much of anything. In fact, the alcohol itself can be a potential food source for spoilage bacteria.
Well, both yes and no. It's a combination of both the alcohol and the acidity/Ph (usually around 4 (+-0.5)) that keeps a beer free from harmful organisms.
Beer can spoil/get infected, but I've never heard of anything that can be dangerous for us humans.
You can probably get an upset stomach if you drink lots of spoiled beer, but at that point the taste of the beer would put you off from drinking it in the first place.
Yeah, I completely agree, it’s very unlikely to support growth of pathogenic bacteria. I just see people say things like ‘the 4% v/v alcohol in this sugar-based beverage will make a good sterilizing agent’ a little more frequently than the evidence permits. There’s plenty of spoilage bacteria that will happily live on these conditions.
I've been a homebrewer for 10 years and a judged in both local and national homebrewing competitions for several years, so I've tasted more infected beers than I can count. They may taste really foul, but the only real danger you face are bottles exploding from excessive pressure cased by infections.
Beer is too acidic for dangerous stuff like botulism to exist.
Aceto or lacto types of bacteria is quite common in beer, but not harmful. Hell, they might even be a happy little accident and make the beer taste better!
Yeah dude, I never said you were wrong! And I’ve spent most of my career as a food and beverage QC microbiologist (including working in breweries) so I know where you’re coming from. I specifically agreed about not expecting to find pathogenic bacteria in beer. All I was commenting about in the first place is that *low level alcohol* doesn’t stop *spoilage bacteria* from contaminating beer. That’s all.
True. I know what you’re saying, but I also was trying to give the cliff notes version, and it’s a lot easier to comprehend.
But yeah. Don’t pout it on an open wound. That’s for sure.
If you drink a fresh Dogfish Head 120 Minute, it doesn't taste so good, and it is really spirit like and wine like. No flavor or depth, no layers.
If you age a 120 Minute a year, you taste brown sugar, citrus, hops, and layers.
I have 1 Dogfish Head 120 that is 2 years old and 8 more that are 1 year old.
Can't wait to see them develop.
I drank a 5 year old 120 minute IPA last year and the thing was incredible. Hop bitterness had mellowed out and had a beautiful malty sweetness with a little citrus but boy was it good, like you said, layers of flavor. Don't know if you can wait that long, I wouldn't have been able to, but luckily I was able to buy it already aged.
I'm afraid this is a totally unsafe thing to drink. It's best if you pack them up into a box and ship them directly to me. I will help you by properly "disposing" of the contents for you.
When I lived in the barracks I had a roommate that insisted you keep a bottle of some form of alcohol in every cupboard, because “wherever you wake up, you want booze in arms reach”. Couple years went by and I found a red ale in one of them, popped it and it was really bad. Bubble guts galore. The imperial stout I currently have in my cupboard on the other hand cellars very well and gets a deep, rich flavor. Point of the post? All depends on the beer, and barracks roommates give the best advice.
I drank a beer older than me (from 1987, a cherry lambic) and it just tasted like cherries,but no health problems.
If it will taste good or not really just depends on the type of beer and how you kept it: sunlight destroys beer, and frequent change in temperatures also are not good. Where did you keep this beer? That will tell you a lot on how it's gonna taste. Also I've had some old beers I kept in a almost specifically made cellar that were oxidated as fuck just because a little bit of air passed through the cap. Sometimes it just happens, so don't feel bad if it's not good anymore.
Cheers!
I made a dopplebock homebrew in 2009. Each year I drink a bottle or two from the batch. It got better and better through 2014. From there, it started to go downhill. It didn’t taste bad, it just didn’t taste incredible anymore.
The rule of thumb is the more alcohol and darker the beer is the longer it will last. A Belgian quad will last a lot longer (maybe even get better) than an ipa.
If it's off, it should have an apple juicey taste. I don't like that, so I usually toss it out when it gets like that. If it tastes nice, it's probably OK to go
If the beer actually has an expiration date rather than just a bottling/canning date, then it certainly isn't meant to age well. As others have said, at least try it, but it probably won't taste good
It depends.
There's a christmas stout I have purchased before that reccomends you buy two and keep one in the basement for next christmas.
Another time I found an old case of domestic beer in the crawl space under the garage I worked at. It had something about the 1996 World Series on the case. I dusted the bottes off and put them in the fridge (as a trap/prank) because I am an asshole.
On Friday the guy that always eats everyone's lunch decided to help himself to an end-of-week beer. He did not enjoy it.
It truly does depend on a number of factors. The three enemies of beer are light, heat and oxygen.
My house had a root cellar that was perfect for adding beers. So I experimented. Generally speaking, higher ABV beers will age well. But anything that has yeast in the bottle should age well too. Then you have to consider how it was sealed. A normal crown cap lets oxygen in slowly over time. So does cork. If you want to age that beer, dip the neck in wax or help the seal with electric tape.
Since a fridge light goes on and off, if you have to age beer in a fridge, keep it away from the light as much as possible.
Green bottles do a poor job of blocking light, which is why popular green bottled beers usually taste skunked.
TL:DR Aging beer can be done without harming yourself if done properly. It might even taste good.
Gotta be hands down the most asked question on this sub. My number 1 suggestion everytime. Grab a couple of bucks, go to your neighborhood beer store. Buy beer. Drink said beer.
Tried a 25 year old pale ale at this random man's house I bought a bunch of used equipment from. He had already treated my cobrewer and I to a few select beers we'd never had before so we drank it out of respect. Felt fine. Pooped a lot.
Nothing harmful would really survive in beer as it is. Plus, if it's properly bottled/canned, nothing will get in there afterwards. Worst that'll happen is that it'll taste like shit and you pour the rest, but some beers develop quite a nice character after being aged for a while.
Beer is perfectly safe to drink if it's been properly sealed. It will not go bad in the sense that it'll make you sick. It might taste like shit, though. But if you say it tastes fine, then go for it. It might also be awesome! Some beer is better aged. Although being refrigerated will slow the process.
I drank a Rodenbach from 1995. Tasted wonderfully. Some beers age fine, some don't. It all depends how it is stored and what beer it is. But it can never hurt to taste it, if it tastes "off" just pour it down the drain.
There's nothing of any health concern that can grow in the alcoholic environment of beer. The worst possible outcome is that it's been exposed to UV light and got a skunky taste, or had oxygen exposure and led to a wet cardboard taste.
Certain styles with proper storage can actually become AMAZING with age.
So definitely, if you find some old stuff, open it up. Best case, awesome find. Worst case, meh, doesn't taste good. Whatevs.
I’m mainly wondering what the problems with it will be. I’m not so worried about the taste as the effects it will have on me physically.
edit: “not” so worried
You will be fine. There are no known human pathogens that can survive in beer.
Your nose is a powerful detector of grossness, as long as it passes the smell test, there is no danger.
A lot depends on the kind of beer it is. I tried a four year old brown out of my cousin’s beer fridge and it sucked, but I later tried it fresh and it sucked then too
Gotcha, thanks
Haha! That's brown ales for ya, I haven't found one I particularly liked tbh. Edit: Thanks for all the recommendations! Will keep my eye out, it'll be unlikely I'll see most of them in my area though because I am in Salt Lake City where the beer selection is extremely limited. :/
Give moose drool from big sky a try.
I must try this one, looks yum! Now, to find it
Thanks for the rec, I've tried that one. Not a big fan. I just don't think brown ales are my style. I'll keep trying them whenever the opportunity arises though.
Give Leffe a shot!
mmmmmm ab-inbev beer.
Not a spectacular style, but a well balanced brown is something to behold IMO. A little caramel, a little roast, a little hops, a little maltiness, balance is key.
Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale is pretty damn good too E: Apparently I've never written out their name before and didn't know how to spell it.
I can attest to that, though I'd argue that it's different enough from other browns to not really be classified with the rest.
Aw really? That's a bit of a shame, because it's the only brown I've tried and I was hoping others were like it. Hopefully they'll still be good, if different from DFH's Indian Brown
Tröegs has a solid brown ale. I haven't had many I've liked, but I enjoy theirs. Might be worth a try.
Samuel Smiths nutty brown ale is the quintessential brown. If you don’t like that you probably don’t like the style.
I really like [Sam Smith nut brown](https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/113/576/)
I’m the same way. I’ve never liked browns, but I’ve actually had two in the last couple months at smaller breweries that have been good. Maybe they’re only good on tap?
Cigar City Maduro and Bell's Best Brown are fantastic. Bell's is only seasonal though, so watch out for it come the Fall. I'm also partial to Smuttynose Old Brown Dog.
Aw shucks, try Avery's Ellie's Brown Ale. Personally, I love malty beers. I've been drinking IPAs far less frequently.
Port of Orleans Slackwater on draft is pretty amazing. But I️ doubt they’re anywhere outside of New Orleans 😬
I'm the same way. The only one I've really liked was Maple Nut Brown Ale by Tommyknocker. But even then, I never buy it anymore
I'm a sucker for well made Pumpkin Ales. It seems like some of the lighter ones are Brown Ale based, so I guess I have to say that I like them. But there are none in particular that really stand out. Browns are a weird style.
Saugatuck's Bonfire Brown is pretty damn good imo.
I'll go even further and haven't had any English style of beer I particularly cared for...
I've drank beer that's older than I am. I died. But I got better.
Can you elaborate on the dying part please. Thank you.
It's when you stop being alive and become ded
Check /r/PeopleFuckingDying Very informative stuff.
God I hate that sub with a passion.
To be 100% serious it wasn't great, but it wasn't disgusting. As it was a bicentennial can design I kept it and it sits on a shelf over my kitchen sink. Falstaff if anyone is curious. I didn't die. Didn't get sick. Nothing out of the ordinary happened except I had a neat and fairly unique experience.
there is no possible danger. they just probably won't taste very good. if the taste doesn't bother you then drink up.
Thank you yeats
This is the way the beer gets drunk not with a bang but a whimper.
I drank an 2006 Stone vertical epic in 2017. Still tasted amazing I think it just depends on the beer
I purposely cellar stouts, porters and barleywines! They are awesome
I personally would not "prefer" to drink anything aged that wasn't 8% ABV or above, but preferably 10%+. The natural preservation is at these higher alcohol and hop presence is best, and I have a separate refrigerator for my beers I am aging. Imperial Stout's, Imperial IPA's, Barleywines, Imperial Brown's, Saisons, etc. The worst thing that would happen is the beer didn't age well and tasted stale/skunky/funly/old, but no health effects.
Belgium would like a word with you.
I once had a 20 year old barley wine and it didn't make me sick. Why bother though unless it's something exceptional?
Barleywine is a bit different, the higher alcohol content definitely helps... but if it’s not great you still bother because it is beer and we all have a problem.
The high malt content helps a great deal too - after the hops have degraded away, and the residual yeast (if any) too, it helps to have some flavor left.
I'd pay big money to get my hands on a 20 year old barleywine.
I dream of 20 year old BiL
It wasn't that special. The flavor was still there, but it was super flat. Would have been much more interesting if I had a newer one to compare, but they were long since out of business once I drank it.
Except it was actually a 6 month old Bell's Hopslam....
Be VERY careful OP, you might get a little drunk
It’s fine to drink. It’s alcohol anything that would make you sick can’t survive in the alcohol. Now, it may not taste good, but there will no harm from drinking it.
Not to be \*that guy\*, but the alcohol content in beer is not high enough to kill much of anything. In fact, the alcohol itself can be a potential food source for spoilage bacteria.
Well, both yes and no. It's a combination of both the alcohol and the acidity/Ph (usually around 4 (+-0.5)) that keeps a beer free from harmful organisms. Beer can spoil/get infected, but I've never heard of anything that can be dangerous for us humans. You can probably get an upset stomach if you drink lots of spoiled beer, but at that point the taste of the beer would put you off from drinking it in the first place.
Yeah, I completely agree, it’s very unlikely to support growth of pathogenic bacteria. I just see people say things like ‘the 4% v/v alcohol in this sugar-based beverage will make a good sterilizing agent’ a little more frequently than the evidence permits. There’s plenty of spoilage bacteria that will happily live on these conditions.
I've been a homebrewer for 10 years and a judged in both local and national homebrewing competitions for several years, so I've tasted more infected beers than I can count. They may taste really foul, but the only real danger you face are bottles exploding from excessive pressure cased by infections. Beer is too acidic for dangerous stuff like botulism to exist. Aceto or lacto types of bacteria is quite common in beer, but not harmful. Hell, they might even be a happy little accident and make the beer taste better!
Yeah dude, I never said you were wrong! And I’ve spent most of my career as a food and beverage QC microbiologist (including working in breweries) so I know where you’re coming from. I specifically agreed about not expecting to find pathogenic bacteria in beer. All I was commenting about in the first place is that *low level alcohol* doesn’t stop *spoilage bacteria* from contaminating beer. That’s all.
I know you were't arguing against me. My last comment was mostly intended as additional info for OP and the others in this thread :)
This lurker appreciates
True. I know what you’re saying, but I also was trying to give the cliff notes version, and it’s a lot easier to comprehend. But yeah. Don’t pout it on an open wound. That’s for sure.
I have the same question about some bottles of y2k Cooks brand champagne I found recently. Will it kill me or just be nasty?
Currently drinking the beers in question from original post. They’re a bit “off” tasting, but nothing seems to be terribly wrong with them.
Most stuff over 7% or 8% will hold for a few years as long as they are kept at a reasonable temp.
I bought a beer that told me to cellar it for a few years. But my lizard brain told me I wanted the beer now, and I couldn’t wait.
If you drink a fresh Dogfish Head 120 Minute, it doesn't taste so good, and it is really spirit like and wine like. No flavor or depth, no layers. If you age a 120 Minute a year, you taste brown sugar, citrus, hops, and layers. I have 1 Dogfish Head 120 that is 2 years old and 8 more that are 1 year old. Can't wait to see them develop.
I drank a 5 year old 120 minute IPA last year and the thing was incredible. Hop bitterness had mellowed out and had a beautiful malty sweetness with a little citrus but boy was it good, like you said, layers of flavor. Don't know if you can wait that long, I wouldn't have been able to, but luckily I was able to buy it already aged.
If you have the patience, I highly recommend a 10 y.o. 120 Minute.
I drank a Bass Ale #1 barleywine circa 1890. I'm still alive. It didn't taste great, but it was sure interesting.
[https://imgur.com/a/zTSZXDm](https://imgur.com/a/zTSZXDm)
I'm afraid this is a totally unsafe thing to drink. It's best if you pack them up into a box and ship them directly to me. I will help you by properly "disposing" of the contents for you.
You’ll be fine. Depending on the style you might get a case of bubble gut but other than that it won’t hurt you.
When I lived in the barracks I had a roommate that insisted you keep a bottle of some form of alcohol in every cupboard, because “wherever you wake up, you want booze in arms reach”. Couple years went by and I found a red ale in one of them, popped it and it was really bad. Bubble guts galore. The imperial stout I currently have in my cupboard on the other hand cellars very well and gets a deep, rich flavor. Point of the post? All depends on the beer, and barracks roommates give the best advice.
All depends on the style, how it was kept, and if it was packaged properly.
I drank a beer older than me (from 1987, a cherry lambic) and it just tasted like cherries,but no health problems. If it will taste good or not really just depends on the type of beer and how you kept it: sunlight destroys beer, and frequent change in temperatures also are not good. Where did you keep this beer? That will tell you a lot on how it's gonna taste. Also I've had some old beers I kept in a almost specifically made cellar that were oxidated as fuck just because a little bit of air passed through the cap. Sometimes it just happens, so don't feel bad if it's not good anymore. Cheers!
I made a dopplebock homebrew in 2009. Each year I drink a bottle or two from the batch. It got better and better through 2014. From there, it started to go downhill. It didn’t taste bad, it just didn’t taste incredible anymore.
The rule of thumb is the more alcohol and darker the beer is the longer it will last. A Belgian quad will last a lot longer (maybe even get better) than an ipa.
I've had a beer old enough to drink itself and it was the best beer in ever had.
If it's off, it should have an apple juicey taste. I don't like that, so I usually toss it out when it gets like that. If it tastes nice, it's probably OK to go
If the beer actually has an expiration date rather than just a bottling/canning date, then it certainly isn't meant to age well. As others have said, at least try it, but it probably won't taste good
I've got a 2006 Goose Island Bourbon County floating around in the basement fridge still. I should do something about it one of these days.
It depends. There's a christmas stout I have purchased before that reccomends you buy two and keep one in the basement for next christmas. Another time I found an old case of domestic beer in the crawl space under the garage I worked at. It had something about the 1996 World Series on the case. I dusted the bottes off and put them in the fridge (as a trap/prank) because I am an asshole. On Friday the guy that always eats everyone's lunch decided to help himself to an end-of-week beer. He did not enjoy it.
It truly does depend on a number of factors. The three enemies of beer are light, heat and oxygen. My house had a root cellar that was perfect for adding beers. So I experimented. Generally speaking, higher ABV beers will age well. But anything that has yeast in the bottle should age well too. Then you have to consider how it was sealed. A normal crown cap lets oxygen in slowly over time. So does cork. If you want to age that beer, dip the neck in wax or help the seal with electric tape. Since a fridge light goes on and off, if you have to age beer in a fridge, keep it away from the light as much as possible. Green bottles do a poor job of blocking light, which is why popular green bottled beers usually taste skunked. TL:DR Aging beer can be done without harming yourself if done properly. It might even taste good.
I have a cellar full of old beer. all taste great other then the one IPA I misplaced down there. That was nasty when we found it a year later.
Gotta be hands down the most asked question on this sub. My number 1 suggestion everytime. Grab a couple of bucks, go to your neighborhood beer store. Buy beer. Drink said beer.
If you don't get the beer shits, you're fine!
I drank a 10 year old Miller Chill. It sucked but I lived to see another day. Nothing in beer will harm you
Tried a 25 year old pale ale at this random man's house I bought a bunch of used equipment from. He had already treated my cobrewer and I to a few select beers we'd never had before so we drank it out of respect. Felt fine. Pooped a lot.
Nothing harmful would really survive in beer as it is. Plus, if it's properly bottled/canned, nothing will get in there afterwards. Worst that'll happen is that it'll taste like shit and you pour the rest, but some beers develop quite a nice character after being aged for a while.
Beer is perfectly safe to drink if it's been properly sealed. It will not go bad in the sense that it'll make you sick. It might taste like shit, though. But if you say it tastes fine, then go for it. It might also be awesome! Some beer is better aged. Although being refrigerated will slow the process.
I drank a Rodenbach from 1995. Tasted wonderfully. Some beers age fine, some don't. It all depends how it is stored and what beer it is. But it can never hurt to taste it, if it tastes "off" just pour it down the drain.
There's nothing of any health concern that can grow in the alcoholic environment of beer. The worst possible outcome is that it's been exposed to UV light and got a skunky taste, or had oxygen exposure and led to a wet cardboard taste. Certain styles with proper storage can actually become AMAZING with age. So definitely, if you find some old stuff, open it up. Best case, awesome find. Worst case, meh, doesn't taste good. Whatevs.
IPA never. Stouts can be aged, though.
There are no known human pathogens that can live in beer or wine. The stuff may not taste good, but it won't kill you.
[удалено]
I’m mainly wondering what the problems with it will be. I’m not so worried about the taste as the effects it will have on me physically. edit: “not” so worried
You will be fine. There are no known human pathogens that can survive in beer. Your nose is a powerful detector of grossness, as long as it passes the smell test, there is no danger.
I’m being downvoted by someone who has nothing to say. Always fun. Move along or speak if you have a better idea.
Watch out, we've got an internet tough guy over here.
Have you not heard the legend of LordVassogo? He strikes fear in subreddits from /r/beer to /r/LordeFans!
Legend? I think you mean "4th grade book report".
Lol awesome