Expire

Expire? You mean, like your driver's license or credit card?

Many beers, including the vaste majority of beer sold, get old and stale rather fast- 3-6 months is the limit for "light lagers"- these beers are meant to be consumed as fresh as possible.

Some brewers put a date on their beers. Like many food items, it's often a "Best by" date, which implies it's still drinkable AFTER that date, "just not as good" (to quote Randy Newman). It'll never get to the point where it will kill you. Sometimes they put a date when it was packaged and it's up to the consumer to decide if they want to drink/buy it. Other times, the date is hidden by a date code, and is for the retailer/distributors (who ignore it, generally) rather than the consumer.

like Heineken

Oh, geez, Heineken expires about 30 minutes after light hits that f*ckin' green bottle but Heineken drinkers get used to it and think it's SUPPOSED to be skunky.

...all this

Huh?

Does beer expire.... like Heineken...all this

Depending on alcohol strength... yes it usually does expire with time. Most beers will last about a year, but your high alcohol brews (greater than perhaps 10% alcohol by volume) might last forever and get even better with age, just like a fine wine.

-- Dave "Just a drink, a little drink, and I'll be feeling GOOooOOooOOooD!" -- Genesis, 1973-ish

And keeping it cool will also add to how long you can keep it.

Phil

I wonder if the "keep it cool" really has that much of an effect on the typical light lager, pasteurized bottled/canned beer? While I wouldn't want it to get HOT and I'll always go for a "always refrigerated" from-the-cooler 6 pack of this type of beer before I'll buy an "off the warm shelf, exposed to light" 6 pack I wonder if keeping these beers "cool" *extends* their shelf life or, more accurately, abusing the beer by getting them hot reduces the shelf life.

Most commercial beer -- even microbrewed stuff -- is bottled after carbonation. As a result, there is some oxygen in the bottle. This oxygen does bad things to the beer after a while.

Most home brewed beer is naturally carbonated in the bottle. This is done by adding some sugar (or malt) to the beer before bottling it. Once the bottles are sealed, the yeast consumes the sugar and what little oxygen is left in the bottle, and produces carbon dioxide and alcohol. As a result, brew that is naturally carbonated in the bottle contains no oxygen.

I just recently finished drinking the beer that I made for my wedding in

Ray Drouillard

Yes Beer does expire abut the shelf life depends on 4 things quality, alcohol volume and Packaging and storage

About quality adjuncts has a negative impact on shelf life which is why Bud (who uses rice) and miller (who uses Corn) seldom have any more then a year of shelf life before going off taste while quality Beers from England Ireland Belgium and Germany etc. can last 4-5 years and even longer if properly stored and packaged

About alcohol volume the Higher the alcohol volume the longer a beer can last but there still are limits as even wine often make nice wine vinegar if stored to long

about Packaging Clear bottle are the worst as beer is very susceptible to sun spoilage and Ceramic bottles the best. brown is the most commonly found and green is better then clear but not as good as brown

About storage A common myth is beer needs to be refrigerated while being stored. This simply not true as beer is never refrigerated from the point of production to the store but it is recommended once you refrigerate your beer keep it there and avoid storing in any area you would conceder unpleasant to yourself

You left out bottle-conditioning. Live yeast in a beer can prolong the beer better than killing the beer by pasteurization.

B*llshit. Light lagers, all malt or not, from the US or Europe, just don't last 4-5 years or longer. (Ever have a year old Pilsner Urquell or Jever, even one that HASN'T been exposed to light?) I'd be very surprised that corn or rice (both used in some European beers) reduce shelf life very much. And, since the OP was talking Heineken, that's what the thread's been about.

Are there beers (in the US and in Europe) that can stand longer storage and even benefit from it? Oh, yeah, but telling that to the guy with the year old Dutch lager ain't gonna help him.

Sorry, pal- you don't get vinegar from storing any wine "too long". You get it when the wine is exposed to air and the vinegar bacteria. Do you get off flavors, some similar to vinegar. Yup. But it ain't "vinegar".

Granted. But the OP was talking about old beer. Heineken in green glass turns skunky in a few hours.

It is? Well, there sure are a TON of retailers who don't believe that 'myth'...

This

In the US, most draft beer is kept refrigerated. During bottling many beers are kept very cold. Coors in bottles and can used to shipped and stored that way as well.

but it is recommended once you refrigerate your beer keep it there and avoid

HUH? Well, I consider a refrigerator "unpleasant"- dark, cold and kinda snug.

Too simplistic a view, I'm afraid.

The big problem of those beers, rather than adjuncts, is their hops contents are far too low. Hops are a natural preservative that can help the shelf life of a beer a great deal...

Well, sorry to disagree, but most European quality beers simply won't ever last that long and still be drinkable, even if kept in closed cardboard boxes in a good cellar !...

Irish ? 5YO Kilkenny is a wet cardboard nightmare, so is the rest, at that age :o(...

Most German beers, be they lagers, Weizens, Altbiere or Kölsche should be drunk fresh, at the latest 9 to 12 months after production, preferably within three months.

I wouldn't dream of keeping most British bottled beers for more than 18 months, even bottle-conditioned ones, for many develop yeast autolysis flavours...

Even Belgian beers are not 100% good cellaring material... :o(

Basically... anything with more than 6% ABV and decent hopping, preferably along with bottle-conditioning (ie live yeast in the bottle), has some cellaring potential (ie. about 18 months to two years). Smoked malt does seem to help a bit too. Most beers that will keep longer than that, five years or so, are usually 8% ABV +, or sourish beers (Flemish Oud Bruins and proper Gueuzes are examples) But there's no absolute rules, only way to know is to give it a try... buy a crate of 12, stash it away in your cellar and grab a bottle every three to four months.

I know of a few 9% lagers that won't really keep well past 12 months... no absolute factor here.

Specifically : light wavelengths that corresponds to blue and green (=> mostly sun light and neon lights, and why green glass is not a good protection)

If you buy your bottle by the cardboard case and keep it in a dark cellar, this is not too much of a problem. Glass color is more of an issue in retail where neon lights are everywhere => check the glass color *to avoid buying beer that's already skunked*.

Indeed, but keeping your beer in a cellar, at a constant 12-14°C temperature, constant humidity and away from direct light does help an awful lot !

I wouldn't dream of living in my cellar, bit too cold and damp, yet it does wonders to my beer :o)

Cheers !

Laurent

quality,

I just recently finished the beer that I brewed in 1994 for my wedding. Even the light stuff was good to the last drop.

I believe the secret is in the conditioning. When beer is naturally conditioned, all of the oxygen in the bottle is used up by the yeast.

storage

I had some beer with a relatively high alcohol content (about 6.6%) that wasn't very good until I let it age a while.

spoilage and

heh...

I have stored beer in clear bottles, but I am careful to keep the bottles well boxed and out of the light.

My beer lasted twelve years without being refrigerated. It was kept at about 60-70 degrees F, depending on the season.

I suspect that refrigeration will slow down the oxidation process. If I had beer with oxygen still in the bottle, I would keep it refrigerated.

LOL

Ray Drouillard

I can honestly say the issue has never come up at our gaff - the beer's never on the shelf long enough.