Question About Expired Beer

Any time you see flakes in the beer it is always unstable and should never be consumed. The beer is not necessarily going to harm you or make you sick but it will taste like cardboard and is not worth your time. Even a double ipa is only good for about 15 months.

 

Your assertion that flakes indicate old, oxidized beer is not correct. Protein flakes can form in fresh beer as well.

 

Very soon we will be date coding all 6 and 12 pack wraps with canned on dates. And do you mind telling me where you purchased the beer so we can fix? Thanks.

 

Good to hear! I picked up the sixer in question from the cooler at Martignetti's in Brighton.

 

This. I've done it several times with IPAs and the outcome has been great. Typically I do shrimp marinated in IPA and pineapple slices with a little bit of oregano and then throw it on the grill. The beer does give it a unique and great flavor and it doesn't go to waste.

 

OK take your "fresh" protein flaked beer and I dare you drink the beer and tell me how fresh it is while your stomach sell implodes

 

I'm sorry. I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

 

Too bad it wasn't a BIG Imp stout.

 

Yeah not sure about most, but I think I am going with the brewer on this. I have drank some pretty bad stuff buy I have never had my stomach sells explode. I'd trust the smell and taste test. Now I have had some bad mexican food that should have had a made date on it.

 

The thing is he's right.

While an old, oxidized beer may show flakes in it, some don't and having flakes in it doesn't necessarily mean the beer is old or is going to taste like cardboard. More than one thing can cause flaking or floaties in a beer and in some there should be flakes or floatiies. The 2 1/2 year old Geueze I was drinking last night had a bunch of gunk that had settled to the bottom of the bottle, but was still fairly young yet as it had a best by date of Dec., 2030 on it. Not a trace of cardboard flavor and no stomach implosion and the beer was, if anything, tasting a bit too young.

 

I don't know if "expired" is the right term for the situation, more like "best before". The brewery puts that "best before" date on the bottle/can to let you know how long you have to experience the beer as they intended it to be experienced. If the flavours haven't already shifted slightly by the time that date rolls around, there's a good chance they will begin to change after the date.

Assuming that the brewery properly brewed the beer with adequate sanitation and bottled the beer correctly, the beer should not "expire" for a long time. If there is a good seal on the bottle/can, that beer is in what we call a closed system in the scientific community. Nothing can get in and nothing can get out (unless the seal fails). That being said, if the beer already has bacteria in it (due to improper sanitation at the brewing/bottling end), there's no helping it.

The flakes you are seeing in your beer is likely yeast and coagulated proteins, all of which are completely harmless to your health and actually quite nutritious. Trappist monks sustain themselves during fasting on that good stuff.

P.S. If the beer is actually expired and infected with bacteria (which doesn't happen often), the bottle will either erupt upon opening or you will be able to smell it

 

No way, that is a carcinogen bomb. Put on rubber gloves and DP.

 

Don't mean to thread-jack, but I have a somewhat related question. I know the higher the alcohol and less hoppy the more likely it is a beer will age well, but are there particular styles that hold up pretty well past a best-by date? A couple of local stores sell expired beer at huge discounts, but I haven't been brave enough to wade in since they're usually lower ABV.

 

One of the bigger liquor stores around here has several bottles of Boulevard Chocolate Ale marked down to $3.99 each. The"Best By" date is last September. Worth it or not?

 

Bottle caps do allow O2 to diffuse in at a slow rate, and that rate depends on the cap liner material. CO2 can also get out, but the oxidation is evident before the beer goes flat. SN changed to a pry off cap with a better liner material about 2008 to decrease the O2 diffusion in. Liners also absorb hop aroma compounds, termed "scalping" by SN.

 

Is this just because you are frugal and figured out it really doesn't matter in mostly all cases, or is there a particular reason? I ate expired food the first time through grad school because I was poor as shit, and when younger I had friends whose parents could not afford some food as we wanted being kids, were really careful, but smartly were able to eat some good food that others would throw away...meat and stuff even...

 

My bad. So it's not a completely closed system but the chance of outside microbes getting into your beer is really quite miniscule.

 

If your sole concern is microorganisms getting into the alleged “closed system” then you are correct, there is little likelihood of that.

I personally am also concerned about air (oxygen) ingress into the alleged “closed system” since oxygen (and resulting oxidation processes) is of concern to me. Oxidation = stale. As far as I am personally concerned stale equates to “expired”. To use a food product as an example, I consider stale bread to be “expired”. Eating stale bread will not make me sick but I still consider stale bread to be expired.

It may be of interest to you to know that no pathogens can live in beer. The excess presence of microorganisms in beer results in off-flavors.

Cheers!

 

I would pass. Would you be willing to PM me the store name and location? I'll let a local rep know and they can work on getting the old beer off the shelves.

 

Just to add to this, in the late 90s one of my favorite beers was Brooklyn East India Pale Ale. At the right temperature (which apparently was where I kept my fridge), those would get the most incredible floaties. As I say, it was one of my favorites and I consumed a lot of them. Very enjoyable tastes and no digestive tract discomfort at all.

I could certainly come up with a lot of other examples from over the years, but that was the most notable since it was always fresh beer and the size and quantity were something to behold.