Can You Drink Out Of Date Beer
You can drink out of date beer, but it is not recommended. It is better to consume the beer within 6 months of opening. While beers are produced with expiry dates, you don’t always have to adhere to these. Drinking pasteurized expired beer is totally safe, but the taste of the beer will deteriorate over time.
Like all ardent beer lovers who cannot bear seeing their favorite bottles of brews get trashed, you find yourself wondering whether or not beer is still safe to drink beyond the date it was put on the shelf. You should never consume beer past the expiration date, but if you consume expired beer, you are not hurting yourself, and likely not getting sick. It is misleading to say that a beer has expired, in reality, it does not get unsafe to drink; it simply starts to taste flat and unpleasant.
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The first thing to understand is some expired beers will taste flatter than the belly of a models, it can also taste off. Whether or not your beer is pasteurized, we would advise against drinking it, as it is likely to have an off-flavor, and no one wants to drink an off-flavor beer. Regardless of whether your beer is pasteurized or unpasteurized, drinking a sub-par beer is never recommended because it will taste awful.
If you found a bottle of Imperial Stout that was expired 3 years ago, chances are that it still tastes great. This implies there is little purpose to keeping the beer once opened: It will be tasteless after two days, and you are likely to throw it out anyway.
| Storage | Shelf life |
| Opened | 36 hours |
| Unopened | 4-6 months |
A good rule of thumb is to store your beer at about the same temperature, or a little warmer, as when you drank it. Beer should be stored upright, in a cool, dark area that stays consistent in temperature, like your refrigerator. If your beer came in the refrigerator at the supermarket, you definitely want to keep it in your refrigerator, because temperature fluctuations can affect it.
The temperature that the beer is exposed to also has a large impact on the amount of time that the beer stays fresh. There are a number of factors that affect the amount of time that any beer stays tasting fairly fresh. There are certain beers which are made with aging in mind, kind of like wine, and they may actually be best tasting as they age.
Higher-ABV beers, such as lambics or stouts, are made for ageing/barracking, so leaving them on shelves for several years can actually improve their flavor. Higher-ABV (8% or higher) beers, such as Stouts and Barleywines, actually do taste better as they age, so leaving them on the shelf for a few years is ideal, provided you take the care to store it correctly. You can still purchase beer near or past the shelf life, just know it will have a relatively short shelf life and needs to be consumed quickly. Maybe, but you are not betting much on that, as bottles of beer can be enjoyed up until the day of their date, rather than the date of their usage.
In other words, you want to buy and drink your beer closest to its date of packing, since that is when it is freshest. For that reason, the shelf life is added to the beer can or bottle, so liquor stores know when to stop selling a beer that might not be in its best form anymore. Most beer companies will label their bottles with an expiration date that is somewhere between 3 months and 9 months after you put it in your bottle. Yes, most beer companies are nice enough to print the expiration date either on the packaging, or the bottles themselves.
For instance, if a beer is stored in a clearer bottle, be it a green one, the expiration date is going to be a lot shorter. The final option is to look through the package of your container or packaging, if you cannot find a date on your beer that is written on your packaging or somewhere on your bottle/can. After checking the cap, bottle/can, carrier, and case carton, if you are still not able to find any beer expiration date, then there is probably no date code, so you will need to take a chance on hoping that you bought a fresh beer. Beer expiry date codes, on specific parts of bottles, are largely consistent across all product lines, written by breweries in specific ways, such as Tiger Beers date.
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You can expect that beer will last for at least 5 months after the bottle date as long as it is stored correctly. If stored and refrigerated correctly, sealed beers can be kept past their expiration date for up to 12 months. Like bottles, canned beer is best consumed within 6 months when stored cool, 3 months when stored warm. Craft brewers might have different guidelines on how long their beers will last, but most of ours will keep up to 150 days, or about five months, if kept cold exclusively.
At room temperature, the beers will last around five to nine months past their labeled expiration dates. Bottled beer has a shelf life of 180 days (six months), whereas keg-aged beer has only 56 days.
You can drink expired beer without worrying about food safety, but if the first few sip reveals an off-flavor from expired beer, you are better off throwing out that bottle or can. As long as beer is not expired, there is no risk that it will make you sick. Once opened, it will lose flavor — typically within one year. After drinking beer that has gone bad, you might get a bit queasy, so you are probably better off going on another beer run rather than worrying about tins or bottles that are past their use-by date.
If you happen to be buying lighter bottles, and they are close to their expiration dates, you should consider looking at a few beer-based happy hour themes and happy hour drinks to get them out and get some bottles with a longer shelf life. It is important to note best before, best before, or the expiration dates on beer cans in order to make sure that you are getting the best quality and flavor. Always check your best before date, but do not make your final judgment about a beer until after it is been put into a glass.
All of which means if you do find your beer sitting in a cold basement corner, it is likely to stay fresh. Unlike wine and bottle shock, the degradation cannot be undone, so the beer will keep losing flavour even if you transfer it to a better storage place.
Can you drink out-of-date beer for 2 years?
Absolutely, but its flavor will fade with time. Beer is a delicate beverage that matures when subjected to heat, light, and air, all of which degrade the organic elements that provide beer its characteristic flavor and aroma. Even though the flavor has faded, it is still perfectly safe to consume.
How do you know if the beer has gone bad?
It tastes strange, kind of like sewage or cabbage. Although there are many strange flavors of beer, you should be able to tell if the flavor you are tasting is unintentional. Cooked cabbage, sewage, sulfur, or just an excessively sour taste are a few flavors that are frequently indicative of a terrible beer.
Can unopened beer go bad?
Unopened beer will often stay fresh for four to six months if left at room temperature. The quality will then start to deteriorate after that. You have six to eight months to enjoy the peak flavor of unopened, chilled beers before the quality starts to progressively deteriorate.