How long is too long, left in primary?

Is there positive pressure in the airlock?

 

How many months is "a few?"

Taste it.

 

If it tastes like vegemite, make a sandwich - you will lose the hop character, the beer may oxidize (taste like wet cardboard), and then there is autolysis where after a long period of time the yeast cells burst and start releasing off flavors into the beer (vegemite). Best advice is VikeMan's - taste it.

I have done this and chances are very good that the beer will not win any awards, it may still be drinkable and it won't kill you. You can always distill it off and make moonshine whiskey.

 

There is no good way of knowing without tasting. Twice in recent memory I have had hoppy pale ales that for one reason or another were forgotten about for about 8 months. One seemed OK. One seemed oxidized and I dumped.

 

If it sat in primary for that long, it might end up a good fertilizer. I would do a couple of things. First, is it still bubbling, even a little? If it's still producing CO2, there is a decent chance that it is not infected. Rack it to a secondary vessel and then check it out after a couple of days. If it's bad, you'll know it pretty quick. Needless to say, sitting on the primary yeast bed and Trub etc. isn't ideal but I wouldn't give up until you know for sure.

 

What makes you think it would be infected if it's not producing CO2? Actually, after "a few" months (let's say three or more), if there's CO2 still being made, that would be a pretty good hint there may be an infection. But anyway, if proper sanitation was followed, infection would be the least of my worries with this beer.

Why should he rack to secondary?
Seriously, all he needs to do is taste the beer. That's pretty quick.

 

Dryhop it.

 

I have left beer in primary for nearly half a year without issue... at cool (55-60) temps though.

If it doesn't look, smell, or taste bad... I would get it packaged and drink on.

If you bottle, you might want to toss some yeast in your bottling bucket with the priming sugar. It is possible that most of the yeast has flocced out and you will not have enough in suspension to carb up the beer.

 

If it were me, I’d taste it, dry hop it for a few days, then throw in a tablespoonful of yeast along with the priming sugar.

NEVER give up on a beer unless you are SURE there is an infection

 

Good point. The very few batches that I had that were infected were on fire it seemed - the airlock was going nuts vs. that slow bubble that I typically see in a secondary. Also, sometimes, just getting the beer off the trub and all that other crap can make a difference. This is all anecdotal of course. Point taken that an infection will also produce CO2.

 

Well, yes, but with a "several months old" beer, it should go to packaging, not to a secondary. No reason to just move it to a new container.

 

Years ago my brother and I brewed up a batch of beer one Thanksgiving while I was visiting. We kegged it the next June or July when I returned to his house (we live about 2300 miles apart and I guess he wasn't all that motivated in the meantime). The beer was really quite good. Point is, you won't know until you try it. Cheers!

 

While I do like using a secondary, in this case, taste it and if it's good DH if you like add some cask conditioning yeast and bottle.

 

Just taste it dude....no other directions needed to further confuse the heck out of you.

If the airlock was dry you unfortunately probably have Oxidized beer. But as I said just taste it.

 

I agree 100% that the beer needs a taste test.

Don't let a dry airlock scare you too much either, by the time the airlock dried out all the headspace over the beer was full of co2 and will offer a lot of protection.

OP, taste it and report back!