We don't drink much beer ourselves, but have guests who visit who bring their own - almost always bottled six-packs. They seem to last a very long time. I use the "strays" to cook with - sometimes a year after their arrival lol. I put the darker beers in chilis and stews and the use the lighter beers for clams and shrimp.

seagrass

I am not a beer afficionado, but my husband is. LOL

Recalling my high school beer-drinkin' days, I think if you keep beer in a warm place such as a pantry it will get "skunky" within a short time.

(Wow, those are some very strange ordinances/policies....)

Linda

Here you can't buy alcohol, even beer or wine, until noon on sunday, but I think that's the whole state, not county by county.

when we had the bar I was told that moving beer from cold to warm to cold to warm was what caused it to be "skunky". Can't tell by me, I detest the stuff, but I know I wouldn't try to keep a 6 pack in the pantry, LOL. I might try to plan at least a day ahead so I didn't have to buy one single beer on sunday, though. (grin)

Annie

I wouldn't want to hold beer, even properly stored, for more than 5 or 6 months, at most. Beer isn't wine, you know. ;-)

Beer will last a long time in the back of your fridge. But, if you haven't the room or it may be a REALLY long time, you can actually freeze it for cooking purposes. You must put it in a different container though, leaving head room. Beer still in the original bottles or cans will burst when freezing.

I forgot to mention that the stray bottles of beer hang in our bar fridge, so that might extend their shelf life. I have not had good experience keeping cans of beer unrefrigerated for long periods of time.

seagrass

Beer has a use by date for a reason....it gets stale, I suppose it's alright for including in some chili, but not for drinking.
I always keep beer ,several kinds in the basement refrig, and several times have confused fresh beer with old and had a beer drinking guest tell me so!

If nobody in the household is drinking it on a regular basis, just using in cooking, it would be wise to keep a very few bottles in the fridge. It will gradually deteriorate and, even for cooking, should be used by perhaps a year. Less than that for drinking.

Hops are a preservative and the amount of hops varies from practically nothing in popular lagers such as Bud Lite to the high hops content of IPAs. IPA is India Pale Ale, which was originally made to withstand the long voyage from England to India. You might want to buy an IPA if you expect to store it for a while. You might like the hops bitterness in some dishes too. Lagers such as Bud or Miller are so bland they don't add much flavor.

Jim

I should add that cooked dishes using beer often call for a flavorful beet such as a stout, which has a lot of malt flavor as well as assertive hops.

Jim

I found it very unusual on some of my travels to learn that in some states one must go to a state owned liquor store. I believe that was the case in Utah and Washington (although I can't remember WA that well), and in B.C. Canada, the government would threaten to have liquor strikes. During the threat of a strike, everyone would converge on the liquor store and buy out all of the stock, after which the government would declare that the strike was off, since they had nothing left to sell. Everyone assumed that they merely wanted to clear out inventory.

When I was growing up in Texas, we lived in a damp county, but my grandparents lived in a dry county that eventually went wet. I'm not sure whether there are any dry or damp counties left, and cities can make their own ordinances anyway, despite what the county decides.

I can't think of any stores here that will not sell single beers. I have no idea how long beer keeps, but I keep some in the fridge for cooking and don't drink it.

Lars

Cathy, I will send you dad and your problem is solved. Or you can use it as a hair conditioner/setting lotion, I guess. If you have slugs in the garden you can put dishes of beer out and let them die smiling too.

Or invite the new Harley driving neighbors. Bet they would drink it.

Under best conditions I've had beer that was still good after 10 years. Extra dark stout tightly capped and kept in a dark cool basement. I didn't mean to keep it that long but some of my homemade stout got pushed aside until I discovered it years later. I tried a taste and was happy I didn't just dump it.

Annie is right about warm/cold/warm... it will taste awful. I wouldn't freeze it either. Never could drink one after it froze... forget your beer in the car in Michigan in the winter and it can be froze in just a couple hours.

I recommend picking bottled beer in a dark bottle and stick it in the back bottom shelf of the fridge. If it has a pry off cap I think those are tighter. Even better is just to plan ahead and buy one beer when you need it.

Hops are quite bitter. Something like an IPA will really impact the flavor of your chili. Most Miller/Budwiser products are mild tasting... alcoholic water. I'm guessing beer is in the recipe for the malt and not the hops. Btw... you can buy dry beer malt! A pound would last for years of chili.

Btw.. most bars will sell one to go! Quarts/40oz bottles of beer are almost always singles and less $ then a six pack.... what I drank as a kid when I didn't have much money.

Bunch of habeneras still on my pepper plant... begging to be made into chili.

: )
lyra

Mississippi still has several dry counties (my in-laws live in one). You can't even legally drive through a dry county with a bottle of wine, beer, etc. --- even an unopened one. Several years ago the police raided the grocery stores in my MIL's hometown and took all of the hairspray, mouthwash, cooking wine, etc. off of the shelves because they all contained alcohol. They kept it until they got a ruling from the Alcoholic Beverage Commission on whether it was legal to sell in a dry county. It was finally determined that no one would drink hairspray and mouthwash, but they did not put the cooking wine back in the stores. However, having worked in pharmacies in that town I can tell you that several people there use mouthwash to get drunk.

In Oxford, where the University of Mississippi is, you can't buy cold beer in the stores --- only hot beer. You can buy cold beer in restaurants, but not on Sunday. And, the county where the University is located is dry, but the city is wet. So, the portion of campus that lies in the city is wet, but the portion of campus that is outside the city limits and in the county is dry. How ridiculous is all of this!!! So confusing to everyone.

Omg, Cathy, you really had me laughing. I'd have had to give up, lol. I don't drink beer and Christy will only drink a few every few years or so... lol. Her sister came for Thanksgiving a few years in a row and we had leftover beer which she did drink the next year. Some was in the fridge, but there was some in the pantry. Our pantry is quite cool, so that probably helped, along with them being in dark bottles. Pa has those crazy state stores and I remember visiting out near Pittsburgh years ago and we'd take frantic runs for the last alcohol Saturday afternoon. I think the laws over there have changed some and they're trying to change them more, but I'm not up on the alcohol laws.

Non-drinkers here as well, but when I need "1 stinking" Guinness for a dish for St. Patrick's Day, I go to the liquor store for it. No in-store alcohol sales on Sunday around here either, so I'd better plan ahead.

I've also purchased a quart bottle of beer (smallest amount I could get in a single container) and used what I needed for the dish and used the rest on a Beer Batter Bread.

-Grainlady

I don't drink beer either. NH has the craziest liquor stores I've ever encountered. State owned stores only but the weird thing is that many stores are located at freeway rest stops. NH has no tax so people would pour over the state lines from MA to buy liquor in NH. I guess the state is just making it convenient but, IMO, they look foolish when the state highway patrol gets on a "Do Not Drink & Drive" campaign. Duh.

/tricia

Most of The Heights, a large area of Houston slightly north & west of downtown is dry. The Heights used to be its own city and passed the ordinance prohibiting the sale of alcohol before it got annexed by Houston in 1919. Amazingly, that ordinance still stands. I've eaten at restaurants in the Heights where it's BYOB for that reason.

And I'm pretty sure there are still dry counties in Texas. In fact, we ate at a restaurant in Stephenville not too long ago where you had to "join a club" in order to buy an alcoholic beverage. This is a sort of loophole in the law in some of these dry counties. Joining the club consisted of filling out your name and address on a slip of paper. Silly, huh?

Back on topic, from a non connoisseur point of view, I see nothing wrong with keeping a few bottles of beer in the back of the fridge for a year or more for the purposes of cooking. Go for it Cathy!

Thank all of you for suggestions and enlightenment on the subject of beer!

The last time I made chili I saved 5 bottles hidden in the crisper drawer in the laundry room fridge. Seems like someone found them and that's why there was an emergency run for beer.

I knew enough to get a "good" beer, that's why I didn't borrow one from the neighbor. I see his beer cartons lined up on trash day and suspected that it wouldn't do for my purpose.

I didn't think about going to the liquor store.

I usually add about a cup of beer to the stock when I'm making bean or lentil soups. I don't disclose the "secret ingredient" because people who say they don't like beer sure do like my soups.

I didn't think about going to the liquor store.

Obviously, you are not one who visits many liquor stores. I love this story...Thanks for the big grin! I am going to enjoy passing it along, so Thank You for sharing the entertainment value of your experience of just wanting 1 Stinking Beer.

One time, when cashiering, a long long long time ago... I had a customer stand in my line for 20 minutes waiting for the cash register to "register" noon. Good thing no one else wanted anything at that time of the day. Silly silly laws that accomplish nothing. So what if you can't buy booze (including beer, a lower amount of alcohol doesn't make it meaninginless. Haven't you seen drunk people holding beer cans? :) before a certain time or at all on Sundays. What does the time of day or the day of the week have to do with anything?!! Of course, curfews exist. Believe my momma used to say, No, I don't give my kids curfews. What can happen after 10 at night can happen at 10 in the morning. She was right too.

I buy craft beer singles at the package store for an artisan bread recipe requiring beer. The recipe only requires 3 oz. of beer so I can make several loaves out of one bottle. I usually recap the beer & stash it back in the refrig. because the bread doesn't care if the beer is flat. Otherwise, if you have just a bit of beer leftover from another recipe, this is a great bread & a good way to use up leftover beer. I do cut back on the am't of salt called for. Makes a great pizza dough, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cooks Illustrated Almost-No-Knead

I found some Negra Modelo in a cupboard that had to have been around for longer than a year. I chilled them, drank one. It seemed fine.

You can't buy beer in liquor stores in some places in Mississippi. Hard liquor and wine are only sold in liquor stores, but beer is only sold in regular stores. Isn't this all soooo confusing, and foolish? Cathy have you ever looked in the liquor stores in Florida, they may not even sell beer in them.

I had been to Perdue Hill Alabama afew times. Whenever we got thirsty, we had to drive to Florida.

dcarch

Here in Baltimore County no liquor store is open on Sunday, we have to go into the city or a nearby County. The only places allowed to sell liquor on Sunday are those attached to a restaurant with a bar. We can only buy liquor of any kind in a liquor store, no grocery stores, etc. It's so funny to go to Texas and find beer and wine for sale in Target, Walmart, H.E.B. and the local gas station.

We also can't buy a car on Sunday in Baltimore County. Nearby Counties have different laws. In Maryland, a change has to be voted on in the State Legislature, and surrounding counties are very happy to get the business from Baltimore County so the laws won't get changed any time soon!

I went into a near by liquor store today and found a number of "craft beers" and you could buy just one.

So, I am now informed as to where and when I can get 1 Stinking Beer!

***Applause!***

Sometimes you simply need to know where to shop. Finding the right ''source'' is over half the battle!

My husband thought this thread was wildly funny. As if there could ever be a problem with extra beer...

As if there could ever be a problem with extra beer...
There's never a problem with extra beer, the problem is the shortage of beer! Been to a few parties where that was a problem! Course that was in my younger days!

Minnesota has it's own unique issues. Can't buy a car on Sunday. Can't buy liquor or strong beer on Sunday but you can buy 3.2. Minnesota is one of I think 3 states that sell 3.2. I think 3.2 should be outlawed but that's me.

Some places you could go in and buy a beer in a bar, ask them to not open it. However you have to be careful. Some places could get in trouble if you take it off premises if they don't have an off-sale license and even if they do, then there's the Sunday laws. ARGH!

To me something is legal to sell or illegal. How does it make sense to anyone other than some Bible-waving lunatic to say it's legal to sell beer 6 days a week but not on 1? Blues laws are obsolete. People work all different hours and should be able to buy their legal goods when they want to buy them. When I worked graveyard shift it always irritated be because at the time restaurants only served breakfast at 7AM. Now I'm a fan of breakfast but after working all night I wanted something more like a steak, meatloaf or something to sink my teeth into.