We have always been using expired beer to cook. Some might wonder if it is safe, this is what we gathered fro Yahoo! Answers.
How long it takes depends on the beer. The oldest drinkable beer in existence was brewed in 1869, but most industrial pale lager lasts just 6 months or so. Generally, beer that hasn't been filtered and pasteurized, so that there is still live yeast in it, will last much longer. This is generally craft beer. Beer with more alcohol and more hops also lasts longer.
A number of things happen to the taste when you store the beer. Firstly, it reacts with the oxygen in the bottle (quite strongly if the cap isn't fully tight), giving a papery/sherry-like taste. In some beers this can really improve them. In pale lager it sticks out like a sore thumb and ruins the beer. Hop aroma generally fades quite quickly. Whether this is good or bad depends on the beer.
The flavour tends to mellow and go rounder and smoother. This can improve sharp, flavourful beers enormously. The body (how full the beer feels in the mouth) tends to thin out. The beer also gets drier. In both cases this is caused by continued fermentation in the bottle. Weaker beers often become almost watery after storage. And so on.
Never heard of anyone getting sick from expired beer. For that to happen it would have to be infected by some really nasty bug, and if that happened probably the beer would be so rank that you couldn't drink it, anyway. So I wouldn't worry about that. How strong it needs to be depends on how long you're going to store it, and what type of beer it is, but generally I'd say it needs to be at least 7-8 %.
Labatt Maximum Ice is not a beer I would store. It's pale, which doesn't help, and it's filtered and pasteurized so that you can't expect much positive development during cellaring. Having said that, some very few industrial beers surprise you and benefit from storage.
1 comment:
That is a great idea. Use any flat or otherwise old beer for cooking, marinades, and baking. Coors is a very light beer and so contributes very little flavor but it is there. Usr it or other lagers for beer based soups too.
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