Lager Life...

[Bilph]

With the chill weather and my current lack of facilities for all-year-round lager brewing temperatures I'm in the middle of the frantic lager brewing season, no doubt like several others. By the end of the lager season I'll have over 300 bottles.
As a devout ale drinker, that's probably enough lager for me and my occasional lager drinking friends for quite some time.
(Thanks for the anticipated kind offers, but we should be able to shift them without too much help.)
My question relates to lager longevity, especially during summer months.
Do bottled lagers have any shelf life issues if stored out of sunlight, but exposed to normal Adelaide summer ambient temperatures?
I'll be happy if I get 9 months out of them.

 

[pint of lager]

Lagers should be as stable as ales. All beer, once it has finished brewing, carbonating etc, will keep better the cooler you can store it.

Do keep "testing" each batch for overcarbonation and deterioration of flavours. Your hop flavours may fade away, winey and cardboard flavours may come through. If these start showing, get stuck into that batch.

Pay attention to HSA if you are ag brewer. Pay attention to oxidisation if you rack your beers into a container that has any headspace.

The long term storage problem that I have with ag lagers stored at room temperature is slow increase of carbonation leading to excess carbonation.

 

[Spun]

I've been working through my "archive" and just tried a lager I made last winter. It lived through a fierce Tumut summer in my kitchen cupboard and still tastes exactly as I remembered. I guess a sample size of 1 is not statistically significant but that's all I had left. :chug:

 

[pbrosnan]

I've been working through my "archive" and just tried a lager I made last winter. It lived through a fierce Tumut summer in my kitchen cupboard and still tastes exactly as I remembered. I guess a sample size of 1 is not statistically significant but that's all I had left. :chug:

[post="69220"][/post]​

The crucial phrase being "as I remembered" (hic)

 

[Malnourished]

I've been working through my "archive" and just tried a lager I made last winter. It lived through a fierce Tumut summer in my kitchen cupboard and still tastes exactly as I remembered.

[post="69220"][/post]​

I think there is a fair bit of anecdotal evidence out there about the long life of lagers. I seem to recall a post by Jeff Renner on the HBD about 10 year old lagers being fine.

I believe it was suggested somewhere that it might be the sulfur produced by lager yeast which acts as a preservative.

That said, I wouldn't expect them to last any longer than your ales would.