This summer as I was leaving my German host family, my host dad gave me a bottle of the beer we’d enjoyed together on so many occasions (Vulkanbraeu… mmm…). Ever since then it’s been sitting on my dresser, out of direct sunshine.
I was planning on drinking it after I graduate in a year and a half, but upon telling my dad he practically had a fit. “You can’t do that! It’ll taste like horse piss!”
So, how long can I wait before my wonderful beer becomes ersatz horse piss? It’s in a brown bottle, was given to me at the end of June, and hasn’t been refrigerated since my host dad took it out of their fridge.
If I remember correctly unpasturized beer is good in the bottle for about 90 days, and pasturized for something like 180. For the most part you shouldn’t drink any beer older than 6 months.
Drink it now. That’s what beer is fore - drinking. When you graduate, you’ll probably get a job. From this, we can assume that you will make money. With this money, and your contact in Germany, you can make an international call, get your German friend to purchase a bottle for you, have him mail it and you can reimburse him for all expenses and include a nice gratuity. QED
On the general idea behind the OP, it depends on the beer. Natty Boh goes bad right before they bottle it, hon.
Well, here’s some info from http://southerndraft.com/sodraft/9504/GREG.html that might shed some light on the situation. As a side note, I sifted through quite a few documents on the Web, and the general consensus is, “beer shelf life is highly variable, but if it’s been more than about 9 months to a year since it was bottled/canned, pitch it”. Anyway, here’s part of what that site had to say:
If you are going to store it for a while, keep it in a dark place and at a moderate temperature, perferably refridgerated.
What color is the bottle? Brown is more resistant to light. Green and clear bottles do nothing to protect from light, and can have their taste negatively affected after an hour in sunlight.
