How Long Can Beer Stay Out Of The Fridge?

Beer Storage by Container – Aside from factors like temperature and the type of beer, it’s crucial to know how to store beer based on its container to ensure the beer remains fresh. A general rule is that the best-before date on any type of beer is an accurate guide. It doesn’t mean that the beer will immediately expire by that date but, instead, that the beer will decline in quality only after the listed date — assuming you store it correctly.

Kegs: The clock starts on kegs as soon as they get filled and sealed. Even an untapped keg is best to use sooner rather than later, so first-in, first-out is a good rule of thumb if you plan to store multiple kegs. Make sure to keep kegs in a cool, dry space and away from other foods. It’s essential to avoid freezing the kegs, since freezing the beer will likely alter its taste. Avoid moving them around too much, because that can increase the amount of foam that will spurt out when you tap the keg. Bottles and cans: Store packaged beer in a cool, dry place that isn’t freezing. For optimal shelf life of bottled beer, store beer at a temperature between 45 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit and, if it’s a bottle, make sure it’s upright. You can prolong the shelf life of beer in cans and bottles if you keep them just above room temperature and just below freezing, but if there’s no way to establish that, storing unopened cans and bottles in the fridge or at room temperature is acceptable. Growlers: Keeping growlers upright and in cool, dark spaces is, once again, the best way to go. The airtight lid will ensure the beer remains fresh for several days, and can remain fresh even longer if the bar that filled the growler did so with carbon dioxide. Once opened, the beer will stay fresh for up to 36 hours,

These guidelines are more appropriate for draft and packaged beers. Homebrews and microbrews will likely have a shorter lifespan, even with adequate storage. The lifespan of open beer, regardless of its container, will be notably shorter thanks to the external factors it will come into contact with, like air, light and potentially bacteria as well.

1. Leaving unopened beer at room temperature will ensure it’s at its best for four to six months on average.
2. After that, the quality will begin to degrade.
3. For refrigerated beers, stored unopened, you have six to eight months of peak taste to take advantage of before the quality begins to slowly decrease.

It’s also crucial to maintain the temperature at which you bought the beer. For example, if you bought a six-pack straight out of a refrigerated case, you should put it in your refrigerator when you get home. The flavor of beer can change based on the glass in which you drink it.

Can beer go bad if not refrigerated?

Does Beer Go Bad In The Heat? – Yes, heat actually causes beer to go bad more quickly than if it’s refrigerated or stored in a cool cellar. As a rule of thumb, you should approach beer storage using the 3-30-300 rule. This rule states that you can keep beer at 90°F for only 3 days before it goes bad.

How long can refrigerated beer sit out?

Temperature does affect beer. However, it is not temperature cycling that destroys beer, but exposure to warm temperatures. Beer is best preserved when kept cold kind of like milk. A gallon of 2% will last a lot longer in your fridge than on your kitchen counter.

1. Much the same way, keeping beer refrigerated will keep its flavor as the brewer intended for much longer.
2. Eeping beer at room temperature can drop a beer’s shelf life from nearly six months to only a few weeks, and exposing the same beer to very warm temperatures can affect its flavor in a matter of a couple of days.

The good news? It can never make you sick. It just might not taste very good. Hop flavors and aromas will be diminished, first. Malt flavors that used to remind you of chocolate and caramel will begin to meld into a generic sickly “sweet” flavor, and in some beers reminders of wet cardboard and paper can develop.

How long does it take for beer to go flat?

Two very distinct things happens when you open a bottle/can of beer: carbonation: the fizz or the bubbles of CO2 escape making the beer flat. that process takes 4 hours if the cap is not replaced. but if you don’t mind flat beer then it is still perfectly drinkable.

How do you store beer out of the fridge?

4. If you don’t have fridge space, store it in a dark place, along with your high-ABVers – Warm temperatures aren’t the only threat to your beer. “Store away from sunlight and fluorescent light so it does not ‘skunk’,” says Herz. While they lack the regulated cold temperatures of fridges, a basement (they do get bonus points for being relatively cool!), under a bed, or a closet are all good choices for elongating your beer’s life.

And luckily, you should have already found that place when you realized you did not need to rush to drink your beers that are higher than 8%, sour, or smoked. Patrick Dawson, author of the book Vintage Beer, says, “high alcohol, acidity, or smoke phenols each essentially act as a preservative, which slows the aging of a beer.” He’s also picked out some beers worth aging, if you want to try it yourself.

Hint: you do!

Is it OK to store beer at room temperature?

Storing beer warm for extended periods of time will shorten the beers shelf-life. This is especially true of non-pasteurized and full-flavored beers, which most craft beers are. Refrigerated storage is best for all beers at all times.

Does beer go bad when it gets warm?

Photo by Jessica Furtney on Unsplash It’s an all-too-common scene these days. A bearded beer snob walks into a hip, new, industrial-looking brewery taproom on a Friday evening with a contented smile on his face. Screw the bottle shop and the grocery store; he’s come directly to the brewery, hoping to nab the freshest bottles to take home, sample ruminatively, form some dogmatic opinions (e.g., “way too hoppy” or “not really malty enough for a bock”), brag on Untappd, snap some pics for his beer blog — you know, the usual.

• But as our bewhiskered beer nerd surveys the room, his gaze settles on the to-go fridge.
• His brow furrows.
• His smile of contentment turns to a frown of frustration.
• He approaches the bartender.
• Don’t you have anything to take home that isn’t cold?” he asks.
• The bartender is confused.
• No, that’s the to-go fridge right over there.” “But I can’t buy that,” the beer bro whines as he turns away, “it’ll get warm on the way home! I’m not drinking skunky beer.” Here’s the thing.

Our imaginary beer enthusiast, as knowledgeable as he may be on the subject of pilsners and stouts, doppelbocks and barleywines, has bought into a pervasive and seemingly ineradicable myth, the myth that beer can’t get warm and then cold again. “This is one the most-asked questions in our tasting room,” according to Allagash Brewing Company, the Portland, Maine, brewery responsible for legendary Allagash White,

Can the cold beer people buy from our brewery’s coolers get warm? Will that affect the flavor?” Likewise, Cliff Mori of BREW-ed calls the idea that beer can’t get warm and then cold again “an old wives-tale we’ve all heard.” Let me be clear: beer can, and very often does, go through some significant temperature swings without any noticeable effect on its flavor.

Letting a cold beer come to room temperature and then putting it back in the fridge should have no impact on how it tastes. Don’t get me wrong; refrigeration is still the best option. Storing beer at room temperature for extended periods will shorten its shelf-life.

Does alcohol go bad if left out?

Why Does Liquor Go Bad? – So, what makes a liquor go bad? There are three main factors that can affect the quality of liquor over time: light, temperature, and air. Why is light bad for liquor? When liquor is exposed to daylight over a long period of time, it can lose color.

For liquor, color changes are indicative of flavor changes. Similar to that, temperature changes can degrade an organic molecule called a ” terpene,” which alters the liquor’s flavor. Lastly, air exposure can lead to oxidation of liquor that affects its flavor. That said, if you store hard liquor at moderate temperature away from direct light, it lasts indefinitely.

At 30% to 40%, liquor is not a hospitable environment for bacteria. And if it’s not opened, you’ll deal with virtually no oxidation. But once you open a liquor bottle, oxidation begins. That’s why most hard liquors will “go bad” within a year or two. But when we say bad, we don’t mean they grow mold, become toxic, or coagulate.

What we mean is that the amount of oxidation degrades the flavor and quality to such a degree that you may as well not drink it. But you can if you want. We recommend that you finish the bottle (which is admittedly not easy to do with some liquor bottle sizes ) as soon as possible after you open it. Because once you open a bottle, time’s not on your side.

Adhering to the proper standard pours and keeping track of your pour count is a good way to avoid waste.

Does beer lose alcohol when left open in fridge?

Your parents are downsizing. You’ve offered to help, but begin questioning your decision-making skills the moment you’re assigned attic duty. As you shuffle boxes of dusty decorations, trunks of old clothes, college mementos and (for reasons you can’t quite fathom) a complete set of dining room chairs, something catches your eye.

Atop a horizontal wall stud sits a forgotten bottle, and not an empty one at that. It’s beer, a brand you don’t even recognize, still capped. Feeling adventurous — and also a bit desperate — you wonder what it would be like to chug attic-tempered beer that’s been aged a solid decade or more. Has it matured like wine? Or, has it become flat and lost its alcohol content altogether? Beer, like wine, does continue to age after it is packaged.

Unlike wine, this isn’t really a good thing. As beer sits, it will continue to ferment. But don’t be fooled into thinking your beer will become better with age. Beer doesn’t become unsafe to drink as it matures, but it will begin to taste flat — either because it loses flavor or develops an off-putting flavor profile.

1. The flavor will be best during the first few months after it is bottled.
2. Once the flavor peaks, the proteins that give beer its distinct taste will start to break down, and the beer will become a one-note wonder (or disappointment, as the case may be).
3. The exception to the “drink it quick” rule is for beer that has a greater amount of hops and a higher alcohol content (usually 9 percent or more) that has been brewed specifically for aging.

Its proteins will still break down, just as with any other beer, but it will have been engineered to withstand the process in the first place. Most are “living beers” that still contain yeast from the brewing process and that will develop fuller, richer flavors over time,

• But what about alcohol content? As a beer ages, will its potency wane too? In a word, no.
• The alcohol content of beer (and wine, for that matter) is determined during the fermentation process and will not change over time.
• During fermentation, yeast converts sugar (or any carbohydrate source) into carbon dioxide and ethanol alcohol.

As the yeast converts sugar into alcohol, the alcohol eventually overwhelms the yeast and kills it. When the yeast dies, it cannot produce more alcohol, So why does one type of beer have a greater alcohol content than another? The concentration of alcohol is the result of the type of yeast strain used during the fermentation process.

How long can beer sit out unopened?

Beer Storage by Container – Aside from factors like temperature and the type of beer, it’s crucial to know how to store beer based on its container to ensure the beer remains fresh. A general rule is that the best-before date on any type of beer is an accurate guide. It doesn’t mean that the beer will immediately expire by that date but, instead, that the beer will decline in quality only after the listed date — assuming you store it correctly.

Kegs: The clock starts on kegs as soon as they get filled and sealed. Even an untapped keg is best to use sooner rather than later, so first-in, first-out is a good rule of thumb if you plan to store multiple kegs. Make sure to keep kegs in a cool, dry space and away from other foods. It’s essential to avoid freezing the kegs, since freezing the beer will likely alter its taste. Avoid moving them around too much, because that can increase the amount of foam that will spurt out when you tap the keg. Bottles and cans: Store packaged beer in a cool, dry place that isn’t freezing. For optimal shelf life of bottled beer, store beer at a temperature between 45 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit and, if it’s a bottle, make sure it’s upright. You can prolong the shelf life of beer in cans and bottles if you keep them just above room temperature and just below freezing, but if there’s no way to establish that, storing unopened cans and bottles in the fridge or at room temperature is acceptable. Growlers: Keeping growlers upright and in cool, dark spaces is, once again, the best way to go. The airtight lid will ensure the beer remains fresh for several days, and can remain fresh even longer if the bar that filled the growler did so with carbon dioxide. Once opened, the beer will stay fresh for up to 36 hours,

These guidelines are more appropriate for draft and packaged beers. Homebrews and microbrews will likely have a shorter lifespan, even with adequate storage. The lifespan of open beer, regardless of its container, will be notably shorter thanks to the external factors it will come into contact with, like air, light and potentially bacteria as well.

Leaving unopened beer at room temperature will ensure it’s at its best for four to six months on average. After that, the quality will begin to degrade. For refrigerated beers, stored unopened, you have six to eight months of peak taste to take advantage of before the quality begins to slowly decrease.

It’s also crucial to maintain the temperature at which you bought the beer. For example, if you bought a six-pack straight out of a refrigerated case, you should put it in your refrigerator when you get home. The flavor of beer can change based on the glass in which you drink it.

Can I drink day old beer?

Can Beer Go Bad? Beer is a popular alcoholic beverage, but not everyone knows whether it does expire or how long does beer last. Those are pretty important facts about beer and if you sometimes store beer for an extended period of time, it’s good to know whether drinking it is safe. This article will give you all the information about beer you need. (credit: ) Basically, the answer to this question depends on the kind of beer. Normal beers (with pretty low alcohol content), as long as the bottle or can is unopened, can last at least half a year. And when I write “can last”, I mean they’ll taste fine after opening, provided they were stored properly.

Some vintage beers (ales, lambics or stouts) have high alcohol content and they are made to last a few years. In fact, producers of those beers often recommend that they should be stored for at least a year or two before opening. That should allow the beer to age and get its distinguished taste. Once the beer is opened, it should be drunk within a day or two.

After that time, in most cases it’ll be fine, but its taste will be far from what you’ve expected (it’ll be flat). That means that there’s no sense in storing beer after opening – after two days it’ll taste stale and you’ll probably discard it either way. Image used under Creative Commons from Few things about storing beer. First thing you should remember is that beer doesn’t like light. Exposure to light makes beer become skunky (you probably know that skunky taste, that’s why it’s often called “skunked beer”).

To reduce the influence of light, beer is often sold in dark bottles, which eliminate some of the light (dark brown bottles protect beer better than green bottles). Nevertheless, if your beer is in a bottle, you should store it in a place where sunshine can’t reach it. If it’s in a can or a keg, it’s safe from light.

Another thing to remember – keep beer in a cool place, like in the pantry. Once it’s opened and you want to store it for a short period of time, put it into the fridge. Answering the question whether beer does expire or not is quite difficult. Every beer has an expiration date, or a “Best By” date, etc.

• In most cases that doesn’t mean that after that date beer will be spoiled (meaning consuming it will make you sick), but it’s an indication of how long the beer should be of best quality.
• After that time its quality might drop and it’ll simply be flat.
• There is one exception from this rule – unpasteurised beer.

Some companies choose to not pasteurize their beer (some people state that beer simply tastes better that way) and those beers usually expire within a couple of weeks. If your beer isn’t pasteurized and it’s after the expiration date, it might still be good, but in many cases it’ll be simply spoiled. (credit: ) Spotting a spoiled beer is pretty easy. You just need to examine its looks, smell and taste. If there is a major change in color or beer’s odor, or it tastes horribly (don’t confuse horribly with flat or skunky) discard it. If not, feel free to drink it, if it satisfies your taste buds.

• If it was stored for a very long time, it might not taste that good and you’ll probably throw it away either way.
• Summary As you can see, the answer to the main question is affirmative, beer can go bad.
• If it’s a pasteurized beer, it happens extremely rarely, but it might happen.
• Storing beer for an extended period of time, however, isn’t beneficial to the beer and if it’s a standard lager, it’s better to consume it before the “Use By” date.

: Can Beer Go Bad?

What happens if beer sits too long?

It’s happened to the best of us. You brew then get busy and totally forget about bottling your beer! You may think it’s no good and should toss it, but hold a sec! We break down how long is too long in this week’s episode. So let’s paint a picture, you brew an awesome Mr.

Beer recipe, but then life gets busy. You forget you brewed a batch and then one night you’re sitting there and you realize that your beer has been sitting there for 4 weeks! It’s happened to all of us. Things come up and bottling your homebrew is just not a priority at the moment. A common question we get is from people that have left their beer for to long and are thinking about dumping it.

Before you ever dump your beer always try it. You may think something is bad but when you taste it you could be surprised. It could be totally fine, or if you did get some type of infection it could be a good one that turns your beer into a nice sour! For brewing with Mr.

• Beer, we always recommend that you bottle your beer no later than 24 days in the fermenter.
• You can go longer but the longer your beer sits the more chance you have to get an infection and get off-flavors in your beer.
• The 24-day mark has always worked well for us.
• We have gone over in some cases but mostly by a few days.

If I had to put a date on it, I would say you want to bottle your beer around 28 days, or if you cannot bottle it then you would want to rack it into a secondary fermenter to get it off the yeast. The main reason you want to get your beer off the yeast is due to Autolysis.

This happens when the yeast cells die and rupture they release several off-flavors into your beer. So getting your beer off the dead yeast will help prevent those flavors from happening. When you have a brew that has succumbed to Autolysis it will have this burnt rubber taste and smell to it and will most likely be undrinkable.

At that point, you would want to toss it. Now I do want to note that you can keep beer in the fermenter for longer. When you have healthy yeast and good temperatures your beer can sit longer and be fine but the longer it goes the chances of infection will increase.

How long to refrigerate beer before drinking?

For Those Who Can Think Ahead – Chuck your room temperature beer bottles or beer cans immediately into the refrigerator if you’re fortunate enough to have planned ahead. You’ll have to wait 7-8 hours before you can enjoy perfectly chilled beer. By then, the beer will cool from room temperature (about 70 degrees) to drinking temperature (around 40-45 degrees).

Can we keep half beer in fridge?

How long can you keep opened beer in the fridge? – Preserving already-opened beer is tough. The fridge is your best friend in this case, but it can only do so much. How long does opened beer last in the fridge? Properly stored, opened beer in the fridge will be good for 1-2 days before it loses most of its quality.

If it isn’t stored properly, your beer will last even less time before you want to toss it. It won’t go “bad” for a while because of the alcohol, but your decision to drink it just depends on your willingness to consume old, leftover beer. Without a cap or some kind of lid, your beer will likely go flat overnight.

It will go “bad” quickly without an airtight seal because of the oxidation, which will result in an unappealing taste and aroma.

Can you open a beer and put it back in the fridge?

Yes, You can keep your opened bottle of beer in the fridge but not for long time. As time passes the taste of beer changes.

Is beer better cold or room temp?

General Serving Temperature Rules: –

All beers should be served between 38-55° F. Lagers are served colder than ales. Stronger beers are served warmer than weaker beers. Darker beers are served warmer than lighter beers. Macro lagers are served as cold as the Rockies. Serve beers a few degrees colder than the target temperature, to accommodate for warming from the glass and the drinker’s hands.

What is the best room temperature for beer?

What’s the ideal serving temperature for beer ? Though the question is simple, the answer is surprisingly complex. For years, many of the biggest beer brands simply said “cold” — or to put it another way, as cold as possible. Coors Light went so far as to release color changing cans, lest you find yourself drinking their beer too warm.

1. But though “cold,” or at least significantly colder than room temperature, isn’t the wrong answer, as cold as possible isn’t the right answer either.
2. Much like wine, different beer styles actually have different recommended serving temperatures.
3. If you head to a respected beer source like CraftBeer.com, you’ll find that American stouts should be served at 50 to 55 degrees, whereas you can drink American pale ales a bit cooler, from 45 to 55 degrees, and American lagers – which get us closer to that Coors Light – taste best at a chilly 40 to 45.

Even better, some beers will suggest a serving temperature right on the can or bottle. However, let’s be honest: Most of these recommended temperatures are a moot point. At home, unless you have a dedicated beer fridge, your beer probably chills next to your milk and cheese – whatever temperature they happen to be.

Even at bars, temperature gets overlooked. Yes, some of the more high-end beer establishments now have sophisticated draft systems that can chill each brew individually (Brooklyn’s Torst immediately comes to mind), but most bars simply serve their beers at.whatever temperature they serve their beers at.

So what is that temperature? And how much does it vary from bar to bar? Well, this week Syracuse.com ‘s Charlie Miller undertook an interesting “investigation,” as he called it: He went to 30 different bars in the college town — likely a pretty good approximation of your average small American city — and measured the temperature of a draft and a bottled or canned beer at every establishment to get a sense of how a wide swath of bars chill their brews.

The results are worth a look because they show just how far-ranging beer serving temps can be. For the record, Miller reached out to Anheuser-Busch, who recommended Bud Light be served at 37 degrees (as with Coors Light, cheaper beers tend to taste better cold), and Sam Adams, who suggested drinking their brews between 38 and 42 degrees.

In the end, he found a bottled beer as cold as 33.4 degrees (a Miller Lite, specifically), a canned PBR that was actually below freezing at 31.1 degrees, and a chilly 33.4 degree draft beer. Ironically enough, that last one was a Sam Adams Summer Ale in a frosted pint glass, meaning that based on the brewery’s own recommendations, it was being served way too cold.

1. On the other end of the spectrum, Miller found a balmy 57.7 degree bottle of St.
2. Pauli Girl at a German-style beer garden and a pint of Utica Club served at a barely-chilled 51.3 degrees.
3. Miller — who is admittedly not a beer expert — predicates his whole article on the idea of finding the coldest beer in Syracuse to combat the summer heat.

Though there’s nothing wrong with that concept, it again reinforces the myth that beer should be served as cold as possible. And Miller’s own findings would seem to demonstrate that this way of thinking is still wildly prevalent among bar owners, too.

• Eight bars served Miller a beer that was colder than even the extremely low 37 degrees recommended for drinking a Bud Light.
• This isn’t to say you can’t enjoy an ice cold beer simply because it’s ice cold — we all mow our lawns every now and then — but it does suggest that beer temperature is something both drinkers and bars could probably spend more time considering.

In the end, recommended temperatures are there to help maximize your enjoyment of beer. So think about it this way: If you’re drinking a brew at the wrong temperature, you’re playing yourself.

Is it OK to Rechill beer?

Does beer suffer from being warmed and then rechilled? TL DR; No. Beer flavor changes over time (hops fade away, oxidation takes hold, etc.), and this process happens more quickly at warmer temperatures than colder ones. But there are no additional chemical reactions caused by temperature changes, so warming to room temperature and re-chilling multiple times is not going to have any added effects on the beer.

1. Assuming you are drinking it within a few weeks, you won’t notice the difference with bottled or canned beer.
2. I think this myth took hold from left-over kegs after parties: A half-empty keg that was dispensed by pumping air into it will start to oxidize much more quickly since oxygen is being added to it.

When it warms the oxidation speeds up and it tastes stale within a day or two. Keeping it cold slows that down a bit, but even cold it won’t last very long. A keg being dispensed using CO2 is a different story: that will last as long as bottled beer and can be warmed and rechilled without ill effects.

How do beers get skunked?

How beer gets skunky and ways to prevent it Discover why beer skunks, the role of light, and tips to prevent beer from skunking Understand why beer skunks, or spoils, the role light plays in this, and how to prevent it. © American Chemical Society () SPEAKER 1: Attention beer lovers. We’re about to save you the trauma of losing any more brews to skunking.

It’s a miserable feeling when you’ve cracked open a cold one on a beautiful sunny day, only take a sip and find out that it tastes and smells like a skunk’s behind. So what the heck happened to your once delicious beer, and how can you stop that from happening again? Skunking is a photochemical reaction.

This means that light is causing things to go down, deep inside your beer, at the molecular level. To understand the skunking reaction, you’ve got to get a sense of the chemical makeup of your beer, and in particular, the things that give beer their distinct flavors.

• Hops and barley, these are the two main ingredients that give beer its flavor.
• But when talking skunks, the culprit is the hops.
• During the brewing process, hops are boiled down and release bitter flavor compounds known as iso-alpha acids.
• These iso-alpha acids, when hit with sunlight, break down into free radicals that get mixed up with proteins that have sulfur in them.

That reaction creates this putrid molecule, which is almost indistinguishable from the stuff in a skunk’s behind. The worse part is that is that it’s insanely potent. People can detect this stuff when in concentrations as low as one part per billion. So in other words, if you fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool with beer, one eye dropper of the stuff would change the way it tasted.

• A skunked beer is also known as a light struck beer.
• Dramatic, right? The best tip, get rid of the light to get rid of the skunk.
• Draft beer in glass bottles should be kept in the shade as much as possible.
• If you notice, a lot of craft brews come in either aluminum cans or brown bottles.
• These two containers do the best at keeping light out of the picture.

But even brown glass can let in enough light over time to skunk your beer, so keep that cooler lid shut. Some people say that you have to keep your beers out of the heat to keep them from being skunked. Well, it’s time to debunk that myth. Heat and temperature changes don’t skunk beer.

1. Instead, heat increases the rate of oxidation of beer, which in turn can make your beer taste really stale or like cardboard.
2. That doesn’t mean it’s skunked.
3. Even if it isn’t skunked, no one out there wants to drink a hot, stale beer anyways.
4. So stick to the shade, and watch out where you store your favorite beers if you want to keep them tasting good.

: How beer gets skunky and ways to prevent it

Can you drink out of date beer 2 years?

Can you drink out of date beer? May 6, 2023 Yes you can! While beers are produced with expiry dates, you don’t always have to adhere to these. If you look on the back of a beer, wine or cider bottle, you’ll likely see a ‘best before’ date. This is different to a ‘use by’ date you’ll usually see on fresh foods like meat and dairy products.

Here’s the difference: ‘use by’ is pretty much a rule. After the stated date, degradation happens quickly, and bacterial build-up means the taste, consistency and safety of the food/drink is compromised. You’re in danger of getting ill if you go past a ‘use by date’, so be wary of the risks. ‘Best before’ is more of a guideline on quality, rather than safety.

It means the item in question will start to lose its quality after the stated date. You can still eat or drink it after this, but it just won’t be as good. It’s usually found on products that don’t need putting in the fridge or freezer, and there’s a big variety in the date ranges between different foods.

1. You won’t see these on spirits, though, as neat liquor lasts practically forever. So, beer.
2. How long does it last? Its ‘best before’ quality changes over quite long time spans, and it differs depending on the beer type.
3. A typical lager will be drinkable 6 – 24 months after its best before date, if it’s been kept in the fridge.

That timeframe tops out at 9 months if it hasn’t been refrigerated, though. Some beers, like people, can actually improve with age. In the same way that wine and whiskey are matured over long timespans, the richer and higher ABV varieties of beer such as porters and stouts can certainly get better with age.

1. This happens best if they’re kept in cool, dark storage conditions like a basement or cellar.
2. IPAs, on the other hand, don’t fit into this category – especially the hoppy ones.
3. They gradually lose their flavour and aroma over time and are best drunk sooner rather than later.
4. The difference in the above is caused by the organisms that are used in the brewing process.

When yeasts are used to produce flavours in speciality beers like lambics and saisons, they change the flavour over time, living in the beer for years, consuming sugar and oxygen to ferment its ingredients.