Hb Shelf Life?

[Murcluf]

This hasn't been an issue in the past, but now I'm starting to get a bit of a stockpile up of differing varities which now begs the questions.

How long is the shelf life for home brewed beer in general?
Does the life span vary depending on what method you use i.e K&K, Extact and All Grain?
Does the life span vary depending on style of beer i.e Ale or Lager?
Does it vary with plastic, glass or kegs?

I look forward to hear your thoughts

P.S. Went into a Bottleshop for the first time in 18 months the other day and man has the prices of everything gone up or what!!!!!

 

[Brewer_010]

This hasn't been an issue in the past, but now I'm starting to get a bit of a stockpile up of differing varities which now begs the questions

get some people around and get drinking :chug:

Seriously, it should last for months with no problems, but the longest I've had beer kicking around for is about 6 months...I think wheat beers don't age well, but not sure about the other types.

 

[Jens-Kristian]

I can't really say that I know for certain how long you can keep your beer sitting, but I would be very surprised if your beer won't last well beyond a year. I know brewers who make a point of saving something like half of each batch, not drinking it until it's been sitting for 12 months.

I can't quite claim such strength of character, but I have ten or so bottles sitting from two batches I did in February-April last year. Last one I had of one of them was when it was around 8 months old and it was, at that time, far superior to when only 3 months in the bottle. I have plans of popping open a couple of those over the next few days. I can let you know how they've fared. They're both Belgians.

The fact that we homebrewers leave yeast in the bottle, means that our beer has a higher natural resistance to aging than most commercial beers.

I have no idea if it makes any difference wether it's plastic, glass etc.

Personally, assuming the sanitation has been good at the time of bottling, I would think that there's no reason to believe a beer won't last for a couple of years or more. I've even heard of a ten year old bottle of homebrew, having sat in the fridge all that time, still being quite enjoyable. I might not be all that likely to try out that one myself though

Cheers,

Jens-Kristian

 

[WildaYeast]

Six-months does seem to be commonly thrown around, and is probably a good answer if you are looking for a short answer.

From there, certainly easy to get longer...

The biggest caveat is probably that it depends on how you store it. Foods tend to have one of two dates here, either a "best by" or "use by" date. Probably not much danger of beer going bad, as in dangerous, so wouldn't get a use by date (even if it was possible, shouldn't last that long). However, certainly deserves a best by date. Unlike (red) wine, it doesn't benefit from long aging.

In terms of best by dates, depends how you store it. Ross observed to me a while ago that he reckoned a major difference between kegged and bottled beers might be the storage factor. Kegs tend to get refrigerated once brewed and kept that way. Bottled beer might get carefully temperature controlled while fermenting and then just stored in the shed and subjected to big temperature fluctuations.

I've been keeping my bottled beer in my fermentation fridge (doesn't work, but I change out a couple of ice blocks made from 3L milk bottles twice a day, which keeps it at ~18 degrees steady). Haven't done any experiments, but sort of makes sense that getting your bottled beer real hot can't be great for the taste. Light exposure is also a potential concern (lots of advice that brown bottles are best and clear should be avoided).

Finally, high alcohol beers, such as an imperial stout, etc. seem to be the exception. They do reportedly get better at least up to 1-year out.

Don't know about K&K vs AG, etc. Lots of reports of plastic breathing more than glass, but for a decent plastic bottle, probably no difference up to 6-months. Glass will be more temp stable due to greater thermal mass...

Brian

 

[glennheinzel]

The White Labs yeast vial mentions that the "Best Before Date" is four months after bottling.

I reckon they must be playing it safe with the four months just in case someone makes a low alcohol beer with few hops. ie, It lacks the preserving qualities of a standard beer.

As Brian noted, high alcohol beers should last a long time. One book that I ready recently mentioned an English imperial stout which had to be aged 15 years befor it was in its prime!