Homebrew beer needs to go through a process of fermentation and conditioning, but once it’s perfectly conditioned it has a limited storage time before it starts to diminish in flavors, aromas, and carbonation.
Moreover, beer types differ from one another, so for instance homebrewed lagers won’t last as long as ales like IPAs. Most homebrewers bottle their beer, so let’s see how long the homebrew beer lasts in a bottle first.
Once the homebrew beer is bottled it should last 12 months without degrading if stored between 46.4°F and 55°F outside of the light and in a properly sealed bottle. Beer in kegs, barrels, and cans should last for the same time as the beer in a bottle if all conditions are met. Certain beers like IPAs and wheat beers should be consumed sooner than other beer styles.
How long does homebrew beer last in a keg?
Homebrew beer in a keg can last for a year without going bad. There isn’t any difference between storing beer in bottles or in a keg as long as you store it within the right environment (46°F to 50°F is ideal, temperature above 60°F will slowly and noticeably degrade the beer over time).
Kegs are awesome, but many homebrewers think it’s too much of a hassle to switch from bottles to kegs. With a keg, you actually save time and headaches otherwise brought with bottling and always have a fresh beer on tap at home.
Moreover, there are awesome portable kegs that make it easy to carry beer anywhere around you whether it’s a party or a camping trip. It’s also easier to preserve the temperature in kegs than it’s with individual bottles which impacts how long will the beer be optimal for drinking.
How long does homebrew beer last in a barrel?
Keeping homebrew beer in the barrel is usually a practice for heavier beer types like imperial stouts and Belgian dubbels and such beer can last for more than a year within a barrel.
There’s no point in putting just any beer in a barrel because the whole purpose of barrels is to slowly condition heavier beers (like 4-8 months) and give them that special note they would otherwise be missing. Beers that are supposed to be enjoyed ASAP shouldn’t be put in a barrel.
How long can beer be stored at room temperature?
Beer should be fine even after a few months at room temperature depending on the style and amount of hops in it.
After all, the initial conditioning phase begins at room temperature because that’s where the yeast works best for purposes of converting priming sugar to Co2 and the beer may overall mature faster at room temperature than in a fridge.
However, keeping the beer at room temperature for more than 2-3 months may begin to hurt it and with time make it worse. I have talked to people and some claim that you could store the homebrew beer for a year at room temperature without any issues.
In my opinion, a couple of months is the longest I would keep the beer out of the cold. I believe you risk the quality of beer if you keep it too long at room temperature. Moreover, the issue is that sometimes room temperature changes and a few more degrees may bring the heat that will hurt the hops in the beer.
Be careful with IPAs and wheat beer
IPAs and wheat beers are special and they should be consumed as soon as possible for the best experience. This means that they greatly deteriorate after 3 months and shouldn’t be consumed as such. As a matter of fact, you should drink your IPA or wheat beer within 3 weeks of buying it from a store.
When homebrewing IPAs or wheat beers it would be ideal to use the same approach and drink them as soon as possible after the inevitable conditioning phase is done.
So, if you need a week to ferment it and another 4 weeks for carbonation and conditioning, drink it sooner than other beer types you brew.
If you wonder why these beers are different it’s simply due to a higher focus on certain ingredients such as hops, but intentionally unfiltered sediment found in wheat and hazy IPAs is also not keen on long storage as it may start to break down and change the flavors of the beer.
If you have ever seen those big chunks of sediment floating in a beer, it may be due to the age.
Hops are sensitive to time, lightning, heat, and oxygen, and even in perfect storing conditions, you can’t prevent the time from passing which will eventually change the freshness the hops bring in IPAs.
So, can you drink expired beer?
You can drink expired beer because expired beer can’t be contaminated by dangerous bacteria just because it got old, and no ingredients will release any dangerous chemicals.
However, expired beer will lose freshness, desired flavors, and aromas and become dull and sometimes even flat.
You rarely have to worry about the beer expiring to the point where it will taste terrible unless we are talking about IPAs and wheat beer.
How long is beer good after opening?
Any beer should be consumed as soon as possible after the bottle is opened because contact with oxygen will ruin the beer after a couple of days. However, the beer will become flatter and already lose some flavors after sitting open for an hour, so don’t hesitate to enjoy this magnificent brew.
How to make the homebrew beer last as long as possible
1. Keep the temperature right
46 to 50 Fahrenheit (8°C to 10°C) is ideal for storing the homebrew beers and it should be consistent, so choose a place that doesn’t often vary with the temperature. I use fridges to achieve this temperature, but if you have a cold basement or a cold garage you can use it for storage purposes as well.
The only issue is that you probably won’t be able to store your beer during spring and summer without a fridge.
2. Make sure the seal is firm
If the seal is not firm, the beer will go bad within months due to oxygenation. Don’t use common plastic bottles like those you get your favorite sodas in.
Also, do not use weird caps for which you are unsure about their sealing potential.
For this reason, It’s best to use real beer bottles and caps you lock in with a capping machine.
It’s not worth being cheap and improvising with a homebrew beer that took you weeks or months to prepare only to ruin them some time later in the storage.
PS*- make sure your capping machine properly fixates the cap on the bottle. Sometimes cheaper capping machines don’t cap from the first attempt, so you need to always hear the click sound and feel the resistance as you are pulling it away. To check whether a bottle is firmly capped, turn it upside down and you’ll know.
3. Keep the light out of the beer
Light is not wanted in the fermentation process because the yeast doesn’t like it, so any homebrew is not really keen on light by default.
However, storing of homebrew is another thing and this is where the light can mess up your beer.
You see, the hops in a beer are super sensitive to the light and when not protected from it they can produce unwanted aromas. This is especially true with the sun, so sunshine is the greatest enemy of your beer.
Keep the bottles out of light, and always use brown (they are the best) or green (good for lagers and most ales, but not ideal for IPAs.) colored bottles for your homebrew beer.
4. Keep the bottles up!
Keep the bottles up if you don’t want a fuzzy beer. Although some bottles may have more and some less sediment, any unfiltered homebrew beer has sediment.
When you keep them at the sides or upside down you’ll collect lots of sediment in your glass instead of sticking the sediment to the bottom.
This won’t preserve the beer any longer, but it’s a good practice.