How long should a homebrew keep?

[Ian Piper]

I brewed a batch of 40 pints from a kit (Festival Old Suffolk Ale), and this was ready to drink on 17 March (that was 6 weeks after bottling). 11 weeks on from that I still have a dozen or so bottles. I tried a bottle a couple of weeks ago, and it had almost no flavour. I opened another one last night and it was also quite disappointing. The head was great, like most of the bottles I've had from this batch, but the flavour was... well, it didn't have much flavour. I can't put my finger on it, but it was just rather dull. The first bottles I opened were full of character, completely unlike the more recent ones.

Is this to be expected from homebrew? Does it have a shelf-life?

 

[MickDundee]

Most brews should be good for a year or more (I have 3 bottles left of a Belgian Dubbel that is more than 2 years old and it’s more drinkable now than it was 3 months after bottling) unless they end up overly oxidised in which case they will degrade more quickly.

Different beers mature/peak at different times though. “Modern” American IPAs are best drunk quite young before the hop fade kicks in too much, whereas a maltier beer is better after several months.

I’ve never done your kit but the name suggests it’s a malty English Ale type beer so I would have thought it would be good for quite a long time.

 

[Ian Piper]

Thanks Mick. Maybe I just had a couple of duff bottles. BTW it's supposed to be quite like Adnams Broadside (my favourite bottled beer), and the first few were very much like that.

 

[User 38108]

That depends on the strength of the brew. I once made a spiced mead, and that took a good 10 years to age but its now in its 15th year and still good to drink.
I normally go off 0.5% per 2 months for aging. However darker beers last longer than the lighter beers

 

[User 38108]

That depends on the strength of the brew. I once made a spiced mead, and that took a good 10 years to age but its now in its 15th year and still good to drink.
I normally go off 0.5% per 2 months for aging. However darker beers last longer than the lighter beers

Sorry after aging for longevity

 

[cushyno]

What kind of bottles are you using? Glass or PET? Some of the thinner PET bottles may let some Oxygen in over time.

Your bottling process may also have something to do with oxidising, which may not show up in the first few weeks but makes itself more apparent later. I had a batch of ESB that became worse over time and it was either infected or oxidised. Some of the sediment in the bottles turned a darker shade of brown over a period of 4 months. I've also had some loss of flavour in thin PET bottles which I don't get from bottling in glass.