A beer's lifetime, in a bottle

[BrewStew]

I'm sure this has been asked before but i can't seem to find it.

How long does beer last in the bottle from the date of bottling?

i've recently been paying attention to use by dates, and a bottle that i had from a local micro which was bottled the month before had a use by date of a year from then. is that a safety net guess and are ok to go longer or is that pretty accurate?

 

[Bobo]

i remeber asking this a month or so ago. While i was going through some stuff in my shed i came across 3 bottles of ale my brother got me from York brewaries about 4ish years ago. Asked on here and the response was

"open it, if it smell ok, drink it"

It tasted fine so i think it has the potential to last quite a while if it has been bottled well.

 

[MEB]

Didn't fullers find a load of old bottle's of beer that were really old?

I reckon beer will last for years and years in a bottle. Just not at my house.

 

[mysterio]

There's just too many variables to be able to predict it, from the ph of the beer, to the ambient temperature, etc.

I've found bottles of beer i've lost for a year and they've been good.

 

[Vossy1]

Got to agree with mysterio on this one.
MEB's right aswell. I'm pretty sure the beer produced in those 'ancient' bottles didn't get half the scutiny modern beers do and it survived pretty well.
I reckon as long as you've got a half decent bottling technique the beer will last for ages.