I got a couple of cases of Miller Lite tall-boys (canned) that are from
1997. I don't know if they were stored in a cool dark place and avoided sunlight (hope so, though) or not. I opened one and it tased kind of strong (skunk?). What I really want to know is if these are "safe" to drink (I realze they won't taste like recenly brewed beer). Somebody help me out here. Thanx in advance...
Lite tall-boys > (canned) that are from > 1997.
Most breweries used to give their beers 3-6 months on the shelf -tho' most distributors and retailers ignored that rule and, nowadays, with bottle conditioned beers and beers that DO benefit from some aging in the bottle, they like to confuse the issue (I've had retailers tell me that sediment in a filtered, pastuerized mainstream beer is "yeast" ). Hint- Miller Lite does NOT benefit from aging, and starting downhill the day it was canned. (Some will say it started way at the bottom of the hill to begin with...).
Uh, I don't think one has to worry about sunlight with canned beer.
No, "skunk" is lightstruck- you're beer isn't "skunked" (which is more an aroma, than a taste).
What I really want to know is if these are "safe" to
It's "safe"- in that it won't kill you. Why would you want to drink beer that is 7 or 8 *years* PAST the date that Miller would pull it off the shelf?
Gotta compost pile? They say its good for killing slugs the garden (pour it into saucers, the slugs crawl in and drown). The aluminum cans are recyclable and sold, or returned in a Mandatory Deposit Law state.
If you were able to drink seven year old ML and have to ask if it's still good... The only help I can offer is Walter Reid Hospital (the military one in Washington D.C.) may have transplant surgery for folks who's taste buds were shot off in the war.
I doubt that slugs in the garden or fraternity pledges would drink that... Pour it down a storm drain!
In a slightly more serious vein, I offer the following:
A beer associate of mine in the medical field once was manning a 3-11 or
4-midnight shift of a poison-control center hotline. On this shift, it happened a newspaper was doing a "day in the life of" article on a "typical" shift of the place.The very last call of the shift was a matronly-sounding woman whose husband had discovered a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans under the stairs. The guy was apparently determined to sit in his chair that night and drink the whole thing. "At the very minimum, that thing has to be at least seventeen years old, maybe closer to twenty-five. I'm trying to talk him out of it; can you tell me if there's anything in old beer that's going to hurt or kill him?"
The homebrewer took the call: "Ma'am, the canning process pasteurizes the beer, and there are no human pathogens that can survive in canned beer. So as long as the cans aren't leaking, bulging, or covered with green slime or something, it's perfectly safe for him to drink it. However, I'm going to save him a lot of trouble: it'll taste exactly like seventeen-year-old PBR!!"
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