5 Rules For Safe And Sanitary Beer Storage

No beer can last forever, unfortunately. However, there are plenty of ways to ensure that a beer stays good enough to drink for a very long time after you bottle it. There are some key mistakes that can take a perfectly good beer and ruin all the work that went into it in the first place, so you need to be careful when it comes time to store it. We’ll give you a few rules for safe and sanitary beer storage to ensure that not a drop of beer ends up wasted.

Always store at low temperatures

There’s actually a delicate balance here because you don’t want to store beer in extremely cold temperatures. For most beers, the ideal temperature for storage is slightly chilled. The temperature of a typical cellar is usually a good way to think about it. At higher temperatures, beer can oxidize faster and develop flavors you don’t want.

Keep beer in the dark

Light is one of beer’s worst enemies when it comes to storing it for long periods. Most bottles do a good job of protecting beer from the small amount of light they normally see. But for long-term storage, you need to focus on reducing light exposure as much as possible. Light exposure can quickly ruin beer, so it should be in a dark place when you want to store it for extended periods.

Reduce air contact

Obviously, you want to keep your beer in an airtight container, but even those containers can contribute to oxidation if you aren’t careful. If your beer is in bottles, always keep them standing upright rather than lying on their side. When they’re lying down, you expose more surface area of the beer to the air in the bottle, quickening the pace of oxidation and beer degradation.

Store in low humidity

An important rule for safe and sanitary beer storage is to keep it somewhere that isn’t very humid. Humidity may not harm the beer itself, but it can affect the surrounding environment you’re storing it in. High humidity breeds mold. Mold can eventually attach itself to whatever containers hold your beer.

Understand how different varieties age

Not all beers can handle aging the same way as others. With beers with a higher ABV, there’s a little more wiggle room in terms of their shelf life. The shelf life isn’t quite as long in more aromatic beers or beers that heavily rely on the flavor of their hops. These beers can lose what makes them special much quicker than heavier beers.

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