The older my beer gets...

[doublebogey10]

I've kept a 22-ouncer of every batch I've made since I began brewing in June of 2011. Not sure why, but I did.
On vacation with family now and I brought all of those with me to open and share and see how they've aged.
Have seen mixed results and some surprising things. Some, like my German Alt, are exactly as remember them. Others, like my Scottish -80 Shilling and my first IPA were just terrible. And my Raspberry Wheat from more than a year ago was amongst a few that were better than I remember them (I thought wheat beer was best consumed fresh?).
A number of my beers have been way over-carbed when I opened them - giant foam heads and some foaming out of the bottle. This wasn't the case when I was consuming the bulk of each batch previously. Is that normal with the longer homebrew is in the bottle? Or is it possible that I've over-carbed from the beginning?
I've since moved on to mostly my own recipes and all-grain, but the bulk of these were extract kits. So I generally used whatever amount of priming sugar came in the kits.

 

[AnOldUR]

The most common cause of gushers in old bottled beer is infection. Something is eating the residual sugar, and it's not the primary yeast. Drink'em before they get worse or explode!

 

[starman]

IMO Bottled conditioned beers don't travel as well. The yeast gets kicked up and changes the flavor. Also if you travel withthem unchilled then the carbonation could get knocked out of solution. Also, With aging beers loose hop flavor and aroma.

To me Vacations are a chance to Visit a local micro and check out the craft brews not usually available at home.

 

[unionrdr]

I thought from my own experiences that once beer is fridged for a time to get co2 into solution,the process doesn't reverse itself as quickly as when they're first fridged to carb them well. So you're saying that they do,or just when traveling with them warm? Interesting.
As for the gushers/off flavors developing over time,I believe this to be true.
In my 2nd batch of Hopped & Confused,a light hybrid lager as I dubbed it,I had like 2 gushers & 2-3 that were oxidized. The rest are nice,crisp Euro sort of lagers after a week in the fridge. I did use an old,yet sealed bag of BB caps on that batch since I was short of the better o2 barrier caps I usually use. These were at 6-8 weeks in the bottles at the time I fridged them.
The dark version I did with o2 barrier caps was clearer & tasted far better at the same amount of time in bottles. No gushers or oxidation. And my Super Agata bench capper was still pretty new at that point. I figure now that the quality of caps & capping have a lot to do with a bottled beer's longjevity. Beyond quality of process of course.

 

[Beernik]

Most my beers have one to a dozen bottles that survive a couple years. Most of them seem to be relatively stable over time. But I don't dry hop a lot.

If my beers develop a carbing problems, it's usually in the first 8 months.

A rye barleywine got very "slick" after a three years. As much as I like rye, I don't think I'll use it again in a beer I plan to cellar.

 

[RobMT]

I've noticed that my bottled beer doesn't travel well. That is, if I don't give them sufficient time to settle after moving them, I'll have gushers. This is regardless of temperature and even with lower carbed beers. They just seem to be very sensitive to agitation

 

[doublebogey10]

I initially thought travel as it was a 1,000-mile road trip. But not all were that way.

And, Starman, I'm with you on other craft beer joints. But this was a trip to a cabin way up in the mountains. More of a getaway with extended family.