Out of date beer...safe?

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Johnbeer

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I found some out of date bottles of Ringwood 49er down my mums the other day ( left over from when I broke my leg a couple of years ago ). They are a year past there sell by date, it would be a shame to poor them down the drain. I reckon they would be OK to drink. Anybody got a view on this?

On the brewing front I have finished off a barrel of St Peters golden ale. Not bad, probably would have been better left to clear longer.
Now on some Bulldog 'evil dog double IPA' don't stand while the room is in motion!:doh: Nearly finished that. Good but strong.
Next up is a young's New World Saison :)
Tomorrow I shall be buying 2 kits to try and get some more time in the barrel before drinking. A Festival Golden Stag summer Ale will be one and the other I will choose when I get to the Maidstone winemaking centre.
I am enjoying this home brew lark. :grin:
 
I found some out of date bottles of Ringwood 49er down my mums the other day ( left over from when I broke my leg a couple of years ago ). They are a year past there sell by date, it would be a shame to poor them down the drain. I reckon they would be OK to drink. Anybody got a view on this?

On the brewing front I have finished off a barrel of St Peters golden ale. Not bad, probably would have been better left to clear longer.
Now on some Bulldog 'evil dog double IPA' don't stand while the room is in motion!:doh: Nearly finished that. Good but strong.
Next up is a young's New World Saison :)
Tomorrow I shall be buying 2 kits to try and get some more time in the barrel before drinking. A Festival Golden Stag summer Ale will be one and the other I will choose when I get to the Maidstone winemaking centre.
I am enjoying this home brew lark. :grin:
only one way to find out and that's to crack open a bottle and take a swig,i think they will be fine as I have quite a stash of commercially bottled ales and loads of times ive let them run long after their SBD before drinking.remember SBD is not a use by date which is entirely different
 
I heartily suggest you try the beer. If we never see a post 11 from you we'll know why.

Seriously though if it smell and tastes 'wrong' just pour it, if not drink it. Beer is almost designed to be very resistant to microbes. As you probably know manufacturers are require (by law i think) to but best before dates on food stuffs
 
Best before dates are exactly what they say ie quality may deteriorate after not this could kill you after.
 
I bought 4 bottles of out of date beer, after drinking 3 I noticed they were out of date, went back with the remaining 1 and the receipt they checked the shelves and they were all out of date. They asked me to take 4 other beers of same value and gave me a bottle of nondescript commercial beer, cracked it open in the car, absolutely awful,went back inside and asked them if they would swap it for one of the out of date ones.
 
I'v had beer that was 11 years out of date and it was disgusting.....but i still drank it.
Get it down yer !
 
What dose out of date mean.
I know by smell and looking at food if it's out of date, I don't need a supermarket to second guess for me if my storing methods are any good, then just in case they are not to tell me to throw stuff away way way before there is anything wrong with it
 
There are two different labelings, "best before" and "use by" with best before then that should be the date that it is consumed by where it can still be expected to be in 1st class condition but it will be perfectly eatable/drinkable after that date smell and taste will usually determine how long after the date they are ok to consume. With use by then after that date it is definitely on the wane and should be discarded, mostly found on dairy or meat products.
 
If it smells and tastes ok, drink it anyway (unless it's Fosters which smells and tastes crap anyway).
If we then don't see any further posts from you we'll know the outcome.
Can I get my name in your will for any shiny stuff.:whistle::whistle::whistle:
 
Well I tried one of the out of date 49'ers, smelt OK but looked rather murky in the glass had a wierd taste and it was just not right, so down the sink it went. Oh well just the way it goes.
Good news is I have just put a Young's New World Saison in the fridge ready for trying tomorrow night and in the fermentation buckets have gone a bulldog 4 finger jack pale ale and a Festival Summer glory golden ale. Thats 120 pints of ale on the go...woo hoo:grin:
 
At our homebrew meeting this week, someone found a bottle of potato wine he had made in 1983.
We tried it and although not the best it had a liquor feel to it
 
That's a shame. Ringwood 49er is a nice drop. Not bottle conditioned though, otherwise it probably would have been okay. I have drunk homebrew beers more than two years old and they have been fine.

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk
 
At one of our recent Norwich brew club meetings we sampled a beer brewed for the queens silver jubilee (1977). I didn't check the date on the bottle to see if it was still in date.......


....it was better than the belgium sour beers we tried that evening...

Cheers

Martin
 
At one of our recent Norwich brew club meetings we sampled a beer brewed for the queens silver jubilee (1977). I didn't check the date on the bottle to see if it was still in date.......


....it was better than the belgium sour beers we tried that evening...

Cheers

Martin
That's interesting. I have three bottles brewed for the Silver Jubilee in my garage. Two from Ind Coope, one from Matthew Brown, all now defunct as brewing names. Never known what to do with them in recent years. Perhaps I should open one :hmm:
Occasionally bottles of Bass Kings Ale (brewed in 1902 to commemorate a visit of Edward VII ) are opened and are apparently are still drinkable. Although since they are collectors items most remained sealed.
 
I remember a TV series where Oz Clarke and James May went drinking their way around Britain in a caravan. In Burton-on-Trent they went to the Bass Museum of Brewing and Steve Wellington, the Head Brewer there at the time, opened some bottle of Bass Ale that was over 100 years old (can't remember the exact details). He enjoyed it, as did Oz, I think describing it as like a fine Port. It seemed it wasn't to James May's taste, however, as it looked like he threw up!
 
I remember a TV series where Oz Clarke and James May went drinking their way around Britain in a caravan. In Burton-on-Trent they went to the Bass Museum of Brewing and Steve Wellington, the Head Brewer there at the time, opened some bottle of Bass Ale that was over 100 years old (can't remember the exact details). He enjoyed it, as did Oz, I think describing it as like a fine Port. It seemed it wasn't to James May's taste, however, as it looked like he threw up!
Likely to have been Kings Ale.
Kings_Ale_1902__22233.1402394740.1280.1280.jpg
 
Actually, having found the clip, it was a bottle of Bass Ratcliff Ale, brewed 16 December 1869 !
 

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