Last year I brewed several beers that I intended to send to my sister and brother in law. I put them in the fridge and never sent them. Now I am planning to send a package with christmas gifts and figure I may as well add the beers to the package. And there’s this whole thing with born on dates with commercial beer. And people want their beer fresh. So it makes me wonder, is my beer still good? I only have one of each so I cant sample one to know if it’s good. One is an IPA, one is a bourbon porter, and one is a chocolate stout.
The porter and stout should both improve with age. The IPA, though, will not. They tend to get a nasty raisiny flavor the longer you store them and the bitterness doesn’t have the hop flavor to balance it.
Chocolate and hops fade fast. I imagine the bourbon will be fine.
