Very Old Beer

Blisterman

At the Great British Beer festival recently, I was looking through the brewery memorabilia shop, when I came across vintage bottles of beer for sale.

Just for the novelty, I bought a bottle of beer from 1978, made by Youngs to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

The bottle is in fine condition. No breakage of the seal. Beer still in it. I've no idea if it's cask conditioned or not.

I didn't buy it to drink, but I'm curious. After 30 years, would it still be alright to drink if I wanted to? Would I get food poisoning and die? Or would it be a delicious brew after all these years? Or Both?

oblivious

unless the cap was wax sealed there will be oxidation, but in big beer that can be a good thing. Also if its bottled conditioned there will be yeast autolysis, this is generally a bad thing again in big beers it adds to the flavor, think of oxo or beef broth.

Its hard to tell and the storage conditioned will have a big impact if it was not correctly cellared.

Here is an interesting report of 150 year old beer found in the Worthington brewery

A fresh future for flat old beer

BeerNut

But it is safe to drink. You can't get food poisoning from beer: the alcohol kills the germs.

rubadub

BeerNut wrote: »

But it is safe to drink. You can't get food poisoning from beer: the alcohol kills the germs.

Some might survive, but one whiff of the bottle would tell you that!

It would probably have lost some fizz too.

Blisterman

Sorry to drag up an old thread, but I got sick of looking at it in the back of my cupboard, so finally decided to crack it open and try it!



Poured very cloudy with a lot of sediment, but it was still fizzy. Smells really rich and malty quite similar to Guinness Foreign Extra.

And it's held up really well flavour wise. If I were served it in a pub I'd never know it was so old. Tastes somewhere between a modern microbrewed porter like Anchor or Kernel Porter and a dark Trappist Ale like Chimay. No beef taste whatsoever!

Incidentally, if anyone's thinking of cellaring beer to make a fortune, I paid £1 for it, which is probably less than it originally cost in the first place!

Bigcheeze

What's the alcohol content?

Blisterman

Doesn't say on the bottle, but from tasting it, I'd say 6-7%