Orphan Beers

I'm not really fessin' up here, I like crap beers, or as I call them, junk beers. Unfortunately, given the huge number of really quality beers out there right now I like them less and less. So I don't have anything hidden, and I'm 99.9% sure that I've cleared out all of the old beers (aged/cellared) that I once had down there. I even took the fridge completely apart and cleaned all of the pieces so there's nothing in there except for some homemade kombucha that got a little too funky. Right now what I've got set aside as 'junk beers' is some Radeberger Radler (really for my wife), and some cheap German pils and hefeweizen that I can't even remember the name of ~ they're that good! I'll clear those out though as soon as the summer weather hits and someone has a BBQ.

I've made a resolution though that I should point out, and I hope everyone will follow me on this...

seeing as how our middle tier breweries are getting squeezed, and a lot of them are faltering, I've decided that rather than buying imports or cheap nationals (i.e. Gennessee Cream Ale) I'll only buy my old stand-bys from local mid-sized brewers. I'll cut down on my smaller but higher priced specialty breweries and that money can go towards keeping a mid-sized brewery alive. And that's not hard ~ I just bought four 32 oz. crowlers that cost me $50 altogether... I could have easily bought a case of good stuff from a medium sized place for that.

 

I've got 2 bottles of Zima in my fridge left over from not last summer, but the summer of 2018. Will I drink them? Probably. Will I enjoy them? Absolutely!

 

There's a Von Trapp Pils on my back porch that's been through about 6 freeze/thaw cycles over the course of the Winter. I'll need to be very desperate indeed before I crack that can.

 

I found a White Claw Hard Seltzer Ruby Grapefruit on the trail early on a Saturday. Damn. It was completely intact, clean, and looks like it was just tossed. I hate the idea of these "things" but am curious to know just what they may be like. Dare I give it a taste or toss it myself? Yeeesh.

 

There’s always a couple Whiteclaws hangin around back there, usually some abandoned Platform beers. At least there are some nights I’ll pick out one of those Whiteclaws. The Platform beers....not so much.

 

Every year I buy a six of Sam Winter Lager. I really like that beer, but I NEVER finish the sixer. I must have a 8 or so rolling around the beer fridge, spanning at least 4 years.

Lots of All Day IPAs, which my neighbors always bring...and always with like 6 months on them.

 

Jim, is Victory still 'on your radar screen'?

Cheers!

 

We used to have a day on WBAYDN dedicated to drinking all of those beers, and even providing a review if you like. Was lots of fun! But don't let that hold you back, I'm sure folks would still love to see that kind of thing every now and then.

 

I still have three cans of Heady I never got around to harvesting Conan from oh... some years ago. When I cleaned out all the good food from the fridge (I know, I know) 6 mo.'s ago I found them way in the back. They are there now.

 

Every year I buy a bunch of Hackar-Pschoor and Paulaner Oktoberfest and always get tired of drinking them which usually leaves a more than a few bottles sitting in my refrigerator for months on end. Every year I tell myself I'm not going to buy as much but I still do....

 

I moved a few months ago. I had an unheated storage room that was good beer temperature from late Sept - early June, at least. I'd just have to pull low abv stuff if it was going double-digit negative F outside, as it would drop to 25F or so inside.

Now I don't have that. It has to be either outside, or inside in the fridge. The cellar is OK , temp-wise, but there's a sump pump down there for a reason. Consequently, I gave away or drank most of the longtime residents. Still have a '15 The Abyss,some KBS,BA VaS, & BCS lurking in the back of the fridge.

The 2 oldest that I drank before moving , Oak-Aged Noble Rot, & '15 Rum-Barrel-Aged Pumpking were wonderful.
When I've run into things I don't really want to drink more of, I've tried cooking with them. Sometimes that works. Ex : Troeg's Master of Pumpkins. That had wayyyyyyyy too much clove in it for my liking, so used it when cooking with ham , & SE Asian-inspired concoctions. Eventually got through it all.
Also, blending with other less-appealing beer can create something better than either.

If not , I'll give it away, with a warning of why I didn't like it , & suggestion to kick the can farther down the road.
Ex : Crooked Stave White Sage . It's not actually sage, but sagebrush (Artemisia sp.), & gave me a headache. Passed it on to a coworker, who had one & passed it on to her son.
I try not to keep useless s#*+ around. ; )

 

I don't buy more beer until my current beer is nearly or completely gone (excluding beers I am purposely cellaring). Any older stock is rotated to the front, just like a store. If I didn't want to drink it I wouldn't buy it in the first place.

I wonder if people with orphan beers, also complain about beer prices.

#firstworldproblems

 

I have a four-year vertical of Bigfoot in my vegetable crisper as we speak. I'm still waiting on an opportune moment to address this. I also have (among my many other fridge turds) a Central Waters Headless Heron. I don't even know when HH was brewed last, and mine was old when I got it. I'll get to it eventually.

 

Send that Headless Heron to @GreenBayBA - he likes it !

 

My son graduated college and I helped him move out of his apt. He had 5 Bud Light Orange bottles in his mini-fridge that he said no one wanted (college kids). I said, bring them home, someone will drink them. They sat in my beer fridge for 2 months and I just unloaded them on my brother. He polished them off in 2 nights! I tried one and thought it tasted like cheap beer with Tang added. Nasty stuff. :-)

 

As crazy as it may seem, I have super old beers in my fridge that I didn't actually buy! (and some that I did) Sometimes people bring beer to my house or send me stuff I don't like or just don't end up drinking. I also sometimes have people over and buy beer that I think they may like, even though I don't, and they don't drink it all. In addition, I have a yearly Christmas party with a keg or two that we don't finish and I put the leftovers into growlers and don't mange to give it all way or whatever. It's always shocking when other people don't do the exact same thing we do but it does happen. And, no, I don't complain about prices.

 

In 2018 I bought a 2015 6-pack at Bell's General Store of 2015 Third Coast Old Ale, which we all agree is really a Barleywine, but I had no intent to cellar it. So it went into my kitchen fridge instead of the basement cellar fridge. But I found that I need to be in a certain mood to drink a barleywine, so those 6 beers have been lounging in the back of the fridge while I slowly picked them off. (Last one tonight, and probably good timing since it tasted like it has gone past its prime aging experience.)

 

I 100% forgot Zima existed. You go on with your bad self and enjoy them.

 

So I literally scrub out my beer fridge twice a year so I never miss anything in there for too long. Now rolling around on my boat, god only knows what I have. And those bottles loose carbonation after a few rough trips out of the bay. Still going to drink them when I find them though.