Old Beer and You

A smart man once told me "all that will happen to old beer is it will ferment more." Thing he left out was "and sometimes start to taste like soapy ass." In my experience, this depends on the beer. A nice Imperial Stout will often age beautifully whereas a 5 month old IPA tends to suck. As I am so dedicated to this blog, despite what my taking weeks off without realizing may indicate, here are some test results on light hoppy beer aging:

Oskar Blues 5.5 month old GUBNA
This Imperial IPA tastes like Jesus... DEAD. Well okay, stale with a hint of onion and oodles of booze. Just not enjoyable at all.

Oskar Blues 1.5 month old Deviant Dale's
By no means the best IPA ever but the very strong hop presence interplayed beautifully with the malts for a very pleasant drinking experience with no real suggestion of alcohol.

Jack's Abby-3.5 month old growler of Hoponius Union
It tastes like a very stale version of the normal beer. Far from rancid but not enjoyable.

White Birch-the long forgotten bottle of Hop Session Ale
I couldn't tell you where this came from when but it mostly went down the drain once I popped its cap.

So while I am all in favor of telling Beer Advocate users to STFU a lot of the time they may have a point about freshness dates on beer. While some flavors evolve in great directions, others explode with putrescence. So let's say you overdo it at the brewery and come home with 3 cases, get ordered off the sauce two weeks later pending diagnosis, and discover your stash is getting just a twee funky. If it's not too bad, grab ye some self rising flour, preheat the oven to 375, and grease thine favorite loaf pan.
Beer bread is second in simplicity to walking to the bakery around the corner. I personally complicate things by taking into account both consuming audience and the beer itself. Here are two recipes I made recently.

Bacon, olive, Gouda Smoke&Dagger Bread
1) set oven to preheat to 375
2) cook bacon in pan then rest on paper towels
3) plop olives in blender on purée
4) add 3 cups self rising flour and 12 oz. Smoke&Dagger smoked lager to bowl. Mix until cohesive.
5) add bacon, cheese, and olives to bowl. Distribute adequately within dough.
6) grease loaf pan using leftover bacon fat.
7) shovel dough into pan
8) cook at 375 for 1 hour

Maple honey Jabby Bread
1) preheat oven to 375
2) grease loaf pan with substance of choice
3) mix 3 cups self-rising flour in bowl with 1/4 cup sugar and 12oz Jabby Brau until cohesive.
4) mix in some maple syrup
5) mix in a couple spoons of honey
6) put half the dough in pan and add pats of butter.
7) add rest of dough and repeat the buttering.
8) cook at 375 for one hour

In both cases, let them cool at least 20 minutes before removing from their pans. The breads should be dense but still edible. If you find them a bit brickish, try sifting flour and/or mixing in melted butter.
The general rule with sweet flavors is they mask the beer's taste. My wife's loaves almost always include sugar because she likes a hint of beer whereas I base my ingredients around the hooch of choice.
Another ingredient omitted from mine is butter. This has to do with my being lactose intolerance more than anything else. The cheeses used were a mix of raw milk Gouda, goat milk Gouda, and five year aged Gouda. All are easy for me to digest. Butter is not. It does a great job making the crust look lovely and moistens the bread just a twee. However, I prefer ugly bread with bacon grease as it doesn't cause me pain.
These are just two suggestions and chances are even I won't duplicate them again. The honey maple doesn't work outside of dessert. Sugar needs to be omitted and maple syrup probably halved. The stuff is sticky and sweet to an extent where even my wife kind of misses the beer. I'd also probably prep the olives differently as they sort of dyed the bread and get the bacon less carbonized. Mind you I may just make something else entirely as beer bread getting complicated is too oxymoronic even for me.



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