Does Beer Go Bad In The Fridge? – Yes, both opened and unopened beer can go bad in the fridge. In a refrigerator, an unopened bottle or can of beer can last up to two or three years. However, an opened bottle or can will generally only be good for a day before the oxidation destroys all the good flavors.
Contents
Can beer go bad in the fridge?
What is the shelf life of beer? – The shelf life of beer will depend on the container and location of storage. If stored properly in a refrigerated area, bottled beer will last up to six months. If stored in a warm environment, bottled beer can spoil in three months. Other containers, such as crowlers and growlers have shorter shelf lives.
Does beer go bad after a year in the fridge?
Most of people all over the world drink beer because it’s bitter. The green’s bitter taste is well known for its bitter flavor which includes dandelion greens and broccoli. The flower of broccoli is very large flower green color heads that arrange in a tree-like structure.
Cocoa is another flavor that most of the people like it because of its bitter flavor. But Cocoa has different tastes if we compared it to beer. To keep the flavor balance sweet and spicy flavors are 10% sugar and 60% cocoa dark chocolate is added in Cocoa. If you are a beer lover you must know how long beer last in the fridge because drinking expires beer is safe to drink.
But the taste of the expired beer will not be good and it will deteriorate over time. It will not be bitter such as a fresh beer bottle. Actually, there are different varieties of beer brands that make beer bottles in different unique shapes. Most of the beer bottles don’t have expiration dates.
that’s why some people may be confused and want to know if the beer expiration date really matters. Of course, it really matters and you must be careful about beer expiration dates. Beer usually lasts six to nine months after the expiration date that is indicated on the label. It may last more than 2 years if the beer is refrigerated.
The refrigeration helps to keep beer fresh and the taste of the beer will same as it.
Unopened | Pantry | Fridge |
---|---|---|
Bottled Beer lasts for | 6-9 Months | 6 months-2 Years |
Canned Beer lasts for | 6-9 Months | 6 months-2 Years |
Homemade Beer lasts for | 6-9 Months | 6 months-2 Years |
The unopened bottled beer, canned beer, and homemade beer last for 6-9 months in the pantry, and 6 months-2 years in the fridge. Make sure to drink your beer before the expiration. There are different types of beer but most of people love to drink Pale Lager and Pilsner because it comes in different colors.
Does beer expire after 6 months?
The Average Shelf Life Of Beer – It is important to note that all beers don’t ‘expire’ the same way. It has a lot to do with the beer’s ABV composition and of course, how it has been packaged and stored. Higher ABV beers (8% and above) like Stouts and Barleywines actually taste better with age so leaving them on the shelf for a few years is ideal, provided you take careful steps to store it properly.
- Lambics are also more suitable for ageing as they are wild-fermented and the Brettanomyces yeast consumes the complex sugars over a long period of time.
- This is why Lambics are aged in oak barrels for three to six months – and sometimes even a year! Opened beer will naturally have a shorter lifespan as it goes flat the moment you break open the air-tight seal, even if you refrigerate it! As a general rule of thumb, sealed beer is shelf-stable for 6 to 8 months without refrigeration.
If stored and refrigerated properly, sealed beer can last beyond its expiration date up to 12 months.
Did beer have expiry date?
Does Beer Expire? – Firestone Walker Brewing Company
Frequently Asked Questions
Ask brewers and craft beer aficionados alike, and there’s one thing they can all agree on: fresh beer is the best beer. One of the most relatable disappointments among beer drinkers is finally cracking open a can of a beer you’ve been looking forward to and realizing it just doesn’t taste right.
- But we’re here to help.
- Read on to find out whether beer can actually “go bad,” how to store your beer to lengthen its life, and how to identify the age of the beers on your shelf.
- The short answer is yes, beer expires.
- But it’s a bit more complicated than just saying it can “go bad,” as it depends exactly what you mean by that.
“Pathogens cannot live in beer, so from a health standpoint, beer cannot go bad,” explained Firestone Walker Sensory Research Analyst Craig Thomas. “But age and temperature have a huge impact on how all beer tastes. Some beer styles retain the ‘fresh factor’ better than others, and many brewers have gotten very good at slowing the rate of aging flavors developing in their beer.
But the fresher your beer, the better!” Like other foods, beer is made from organic plant ingredients that eventually decay. Brewers work to make the beer last as long as possible, and they have some major advantages – the alcohol content, beer’s low pH, and the antimicrobial activity of hops. When properly brewed and packaged, the only things in your beer are the ingredients and the smallest amount of air.
It is impossible to package beer without a small amount of oxygen coming along with it. Over time, that oxygen can change the beer itself, sometimes adding a stale flavor described as “cardboard.” Not all beers are affected by oxidation in the same way, though.
For example, malty beers sometimes develop sweet, grainy, caramel, and toffee notes. The speed of oxidation can be affected by major temperature swings, so it’s best to keep your beers cool. A beer’s hoppiness can also diminish after a while. Hop aromas are very time-sensitive, so the citrusy, floral, or tropical hop aromas we love in hop-forward beers will disintegrate over time.
And finally, you’ve probably heard of “skunked” beer. It’s a that skunky beer is caused by temperature swings, but it’s actually more the result of light exposure. To put it simply, the chemicals in hops react poorly with ultraviolet light. That’s why you’ll see many bottled beers in dark-colored glass – it allows less light to get through and impact the liquid.
This one’s easy: beer should be stored for a short time in a dark, cool place. If you have room in your fridge, that is the best spot. If the fridge is full, keeping your beer in the basement or a cool closet is the next-best option. Needless to say, the hot trunk of a car or a sunny kitchen counter are some of the worst places for your beer – so keep its time in locations like that to a minimum.
Curious about shelf life? Remember the 3/30/300 Rule: A Firestone beer stored at 98-degrees Fahrenheit for 3 days is equivalent to one stored at 72-degrees Fahrenheit for 30 days or one stored at 35-degrees Fahrenheit for 300 days. Almost every beer has a date printed on it, which will help you understand how long the beer will taste the way the brewers intended – assuming it’s been stored properly.
- At Firestone Walker, we make it easy with a “born on” date.
- This date, found on the bottom of cans or the bottle label, notes when the beer was packaged.
- We use a month/day/year format followed by a time stamp.
- Ex: 1/1/23 23:40) Our lagered beers – like,, or any of our stouts – have a six-month shelf life.
Other beers like,, and have a four-month shelf life. Other breweries use what is called a Julian date code. It’s often 3 numbers followed by one more digit. The first three digits represent the day of the year, with the last digit being the last number of the year.
- For example, 165 3 would be the 165th day of 2023 (June 13th).
- Sometimes this number can appear as 0165 – with the year coming first, followed by the day of the year.
- Lastly, some breweries put a best-by date on their packaging.
- Now that the closer you are to the best-by date, the older the beer.
- Some beers develop admirable flavors over time, and intentionally aging beer is a hobby of its own.
As a rule of thumb, if you enjoy drinking beer, you want to drink it closer to the day it was brewed. That is how you get to taste the beer the way the brewers intended it to be. Deadset on cellaring that bottle of 2023 Parabola to try next year? We get it.
- Aging beer allows various flavors not immediately present to develop over time.
- Just remember that not all beers are good candidates for the effects of gentle aging and cellaring.
- Beers that can be cellared: Barleywines, Imperial Stouts, Belgian style Quads, and other high-ABV beers with dark malts.
- Barrel-aged sours and rauchbiers are lower ABV, but they can age beautifully.
Beers that shouldn’t be cellared: Any beers with hop-forward characteristics, such as IPAs and Pale Ales. Most lagers and session beers are also poor candidates for aging and should be consumed fresh. Read our blog on for more tips on properly aging your beer.
- Want to avoid old beer? Use our to discover where you can get fresh Firestone beers.
- Need to report expired beer from a retailer?,
- Join us to get exclusives on beers, merch, events, news and more: We use cookies to offer you a better browsing experience.
- Cookies enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
By continuing to browse or by clicking “Accept Cookies” you agree to our, : Does Beer Expire? – Firestone Walker Brewing Company
What happens to old beer?
Flavors start to fade, oxidization occurs, and the protein structure that gives the beer body starts to break down. But saying that beer actually expires is a bit misleading. It doesn’t actually spoil or become unsafe to drink. It will just start to taste flat, flavorless, and unappealing.
Can old beer upset your stomach?
– Liquor does not expire to the point of causing sickness. It simply loses flavor — generally a year after being opened. Beer that goes bad — or flat — won’t make you sick but may upset your stomach. You should throw out beer if there’s no carbonation or white foam (head) after you pour it.
- You may also notice a change in taste or sediment at the bottom of the bottle.
- Fine wine generally improves with age, but most wines aren’t fine and should be consumed within a few years.
- If wine tastes vinegary or nutty, it has likely gone bad.
- It may also look brown or darker than expected.
- Drinking expired wine might be unpleasant but isn’t considered dangerous.
Spoiled wine, whether red or white, generally turns into vinegar, Vinegar is highly acidic, which protects it against bacterial growth that might otherwise harm your health ( 13 ). Of course, overindulging in alcohol — no matter the type or expiration status — may lead to unpleasant side effects, such as headache, nausea, and liver damage over the long term.
How do you know if beer has bacteria?
This is a question that we get quite often so we wanted to provide some information so you can tell if your brew is good or not. When you are new to brewing the first time you see the fermentation process it can look a little crazy. Each batch you brew will behave and ferment differently than the batch before, so it is possible that your fermentation will always look different.
- Some people will dump perfectly good beer thinking it has an infection when it does not.
- So before you decide whether your beer is a dumper, you will want to visually inspect and possibly even taste it to make sure it’s still worth keeping or not.
- So let’s talk about what fermentation looks like.
- During fermentation you will get foamy bubbles on the top of your beer, this is called krausen and is perfectly normal for brewing.
Depending on the batch that you are brewing you may get a very high krausen or a low krausen. Some beers might now show much of krausen at all. This all depending on what you are brewing, the ingredients you are using, temperature, etc. One way to always check for fermentation is to see if you have any trub build up on the bottom of the fermenter.
If you do, then your good to go. So just remember that all fermentations will not look the same. Okay so now onto how to spot an infection. An oily sheen on top of your beer that may look kind of like thin white ice sheets with jagged edges is a sign of the beginning of an infection. This infection is usually caused by wild yeast such as Brettanomyces or wild bacteria such as lactobacillus.
In some cases, it could be a combination of these or other bacteria/wild yeast. In more advanced infections, this layer of biofilm called a “pellicle” may look very wavy, sort of like ramen noodles. Or it may look like bubbles with webbing coming off it.
These are different types of infections, but they are caused by similar bacteria/yeast strains. A pellicle is only formed in the presence of oxygen and is a way for the wild yeast/bacteria top protect itself from oxygen because they prefer an anaerobic environment. So you can still have an infection even without the pellicle formation if your beer was free of oxygen exposure during fermentation.
In this case, the only way to know whether it is infected or not is to taste it. Don’t worry about getting sick because none of these wild bacteria, yeast or mold can harm you. If the beer tastes bad or rancid, you might wanna dump it. But in some cases, an infection can result in a pretty good tasting beer.
- Eep in mind that sour beers, which are all the rage right now, are brewed with these wild yeasts and bacteria.
- If you are brewing with our LBK and you consistently get infections it is possible that it got into some small scratches or the plastic of the fermenter.
- In this case, we would recommend replacing your fermenter with a new one.
If your beer is infected with mold, which will be fuzzy and discolored (usually green but can be white or brownish – but always fuzzy), this can typically be skimmed off the beer. Mold only grows on the surface and will not penetrate the beer itself. Mold cannot survive the alcohol in beer.
Fortunately, mold usually takes a long time to grow on beer so as long as you’re not leaving it in the fermenter for too long, you shouldn’t have this issue. Proper cleaning/sanitizing, and the proper care of your plastic equipment (only soft cloths for cleaning, nothing that can scratch the plastic) will help prevent these types of infection.
But always keep in mind that even with the best cleaning and sanitizing procedures in place, you can still get infections from time to time. Don’t let this discourage you. Learn from it and keep brewing.