A few years back, when home brewing was all the rage in the metro DC area, I got swept up in the excitement and tried it a couple-three times. As master brewers will tell you, a good brew requires patience, attention to detail, and a basic level of cleanliness. Possessing none of these, I was unsurprised when my beers tasted more like lightly carbonated shitwine than a lager or stout or whatever it said on the side of the can. But they got me wasted, so I counted it a success.
The fad passed and the stores closed, and all my home brewing gear has been out on the porch for about the last five years. Last week I was cleaning up out there (a.k.a. making room for more crap), and I discovered two full, unopened bottles. The big kinds, like 2.5 beers each.
Question: What are the chances that they're not lethally toxic? I'm willing to risk blindness, but my life insurance has a clause about extreme stupidity. Doubt the wife could collect if I croak.
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8 comments:
Beer lovers? Where? I thought wine was the "in" drink.
OPen it. Pour it. Does it have weird-colored floaties or a film that doesn't look like the head of a beer? Smell it. Does it smell like band-aids or sour milk?
If you answered no to the above, drink it. Does it taste like band-aids (and not just a hint...I mean like you're drinking a liquid band-aid) or powerfully sour lemons?
If you answer no, keep drinking.
If you hate it, sacrifice the rest to the Beer Gods and go buy something good.
Also, if you open the beer blows up in your face when you open it, or smells of sewage or dirty diapers, it is infected.
But all the other stuff, especially a strong medicinal taste (Strong, not a hint, like a good Belgian) and a strong sourness mean it's got a bacterial infection. And floaties are gross. None of it will kill you, but could give you the shits.
ANd thanks for the love...
None of it will kill you, but could give you the shits.
That was our unofficial motto in Peace Corps.
Thanks for the tips. If I survive, I'll report back after I have them this weekend.
Since your home brew sucked when it wasn't five years old and subject to god knows what temperature extremes and evolution within the bottle, why on earth would you injest any of it now?
How could that possibly be worth it? Extreme stupidity indeed!
P.S. If you DO drink, or even open them, please post on YouTube. I gotta see what happens.
I'm with Furious on this one.
(Not the You Tube, though. Don't need that part.)
Hey...J.W. Lees brewery brews a vontage beer every year. You are supposed to let his beer age for about 3 years before you try it. If you try it too early, it tastes like feshly-mowed grass. Great smell; don't want to drink it.
So let's give TH a break. Let's first assume he actually brewed a masterpiece that just tasted horrible because it was too young. I mean, why waste the very possibility of good beer before it even has a fair shot. That's like locking-up Otis the Town Drunk just because you are fairly certain that he's hammered.
If it's bad, it'll have all the signs: sewage smell, bandaid smell and taste, sour milk, floaties, and in some extreme circumstances, mold.
Thanks for the backup, Smitty. I'm sure that beer has been aged to perfection.
Y'all don't be suckered by those "born on date" beers. That only applies to beers where the yeasts have been killed - murdered, some would say - before being sold.
And also don't forget to take into account my extreme cheapness. I paid for the ingredients to make these beers, you better believe I'm going to get my money's worth out of them!
Oops, never did that update. I'm the world's best blogger.
I had two bottles. Neither were spoiled or had any of those other signs of badness, so I drank them both. Funny, the first one was like the shitwine of old, but the second one was more agreeable (drank them on different nights). Don't know why that would be.
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