"real ale" two hundred years old.

In message , Tim writes

In 1809 strong ale (as distinct from beer) was still the most popular drink in rural and northern parts of Britain. Probably that's what was in the bottles.

All the books say ale didn't keep well, mostly on no authority at all. I've never heard of any modern tests of the keeping qualities of ale. The stuff in those bottles seems to have kept well in spite of the Indian climate. It's a pity they didn't say where it was brewed, but presumably it'd been shipped from Britain in casks and bottled in India like Hodgson's.

In the very early days of CAMRA I seem to remember some correspondence about bottled Guinness.

In those days it had sediment in the bottle as well as TASTE!. The bottle label had notches cut to help

Landlords and Stock Takers to establish when it was bottled. This was long before Best Before Dates.

Bottled Guinness was usually good for two or three weeks shelf life before gradually going off. However,

after eighteen months or so it became very drinkable but distinctly different from the rich smoky, burnt flavour

so loved by drinkers of the bottled stuff.

In message , Brian Waine writes

That's interesting. I could experiment with some of the bottle-conditioned stouts that are fairly easy to come by now, except for the difficulty of keeping them undrunk for long enough. I don't think they go off after three weeks, the distribution chain's longer than that.

I remember the bottles of Guinness as late as the early 1990s. It was only returnable bottles which were "real" in those days, so you wouldn't find them in supermarkets, but most bars and some smaller off licences would stock the bottle conditioned stuff. I remember it used to say on the label who had bottled it. Robinsons were the usual supplier in the NW. Last time I was in Eire you could still get bottle- conditioned Guinness, but that was in 1994! Not to forget that nowadays you can pick up the 8% Foreign Export Guinness in some supermarkets in the UK - this is bottle conditioned, and I'm keeping a few in my cellar to see how they fare.

There was some mention in "What's Brewing" in the 90s about the keeping of Worthington White Shield which had a sell-by date about 6 months after bottling, but which came back on form if kept for 12 months after that date. I tried keeping a few bottles and it certainly was fit for drinking, but by the time my samples matured, the beer was no longer on the market and there wasn't a "young" bottle to compare it with! Other beers of the 90s which would be laid down were Imperial Russian Stout and Thomas Hardy's Ale, both very strong dark beers which their brewers would keep in reserve for years to show off to important people.

I've seen it written elsewhere that bottle conditioned ales can be elaborated in the cellar. Tim Webb refers to it in his Belgium Beer Guide, and Michael Jackson wrote about it too. I had a beautiful Chimay Blanc after keeping it for two years in my cellar - it was to die for - only for me to spill 3/4 of the glass on the table. After that experience, I've visited Belgium a couple of times, blown a few bob on some well-chosen bottles and now have collected a fine sample of Belgian ales in my cellar, some of which are marked for long-term storage as, having tasted a sample now, I feel that the slight over- maltiness of the beers will decline and the balance will improve with further fermentation. Roll on Christmas! This applies mostly to the stronger beers in the 8-12% abv range.

Pride of place goes to a bottle of Wets Kriek given last year as a "cadeau" by a vendor in Brussels. It's 20 years old and only 5% abv, but he assured me that he'd tried one from the same case and it was still good. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me to sample the wares of a brewery that closed years ago. The beer is lying on a wine rack [it's a champagne-style bottle with a cork] while I try to imagine what sort of special occasion I would want to open it on.

On the other hand, at Christmas time a neighbour gave me a present of a few bottles of Mike McGuigan's Betwixt beers. On the labels it is recommended that the beer be drunk within six weeks of purchase. Is this after doing trials? The beers are only ~4% abv, but perhaps they could still potentially develop some character if stood on a shelf in a cool place for a year or two? Or are they really in a different category to the high gravity full-bodied ales?

I was never a great fan of Guinness, but the bottle conditioned stuff had real character - if not to my particular taste. It's so sad that they have dumbed it down so much.

Clearly moving back in time to primeval fish is far more important than having a quality product. :-(

In message , snipped-for-privacy@googlemail.com writes

A pub I worked at in the 80s had a couple of dozen bottles of White Shield gathering dust on the shelves. They'd been there for two years (no best-before dates then). They were lovely. When I'd drunk them the boss got some more: it was perfectly drinkable, but sweeter, less interesting and less moreish. They stopped making it for a while then started again, and the beer bores said it wasn't as good - of course it wasn't, it needed a couple of years to mature.

Courage Imperial Russian Stout - it was brewed at Simmonds' in Reading after Courage closed their own place in London. They brewed it every three years and it was said to be undrinkable when first bottled. It was usually about three years old by the time the previous brew ran out. It wasn't exactly a secret, you could buy it from any offie round here (ie Reading). Students used to try it because of the silly alcohol content, but it took us a while to develop a taste for it.

I took some home for Mum to try, and after all these years, this Xmas she said she missed it! I sent her a dozen of Comrade Bill Bartram's anti-Imperialist, which is nice but not matured properly - nor will it be, she'd drunk most of it already! Dark Star's is a bit closer to the original but still needs some cellar time. Brewdog's is a strong stout but not an imperial one.