How to make an old beer taste better

Rush Hour Breakfast Stout poured into a glass and pictured next to some sea salt

Last night all I had around to drink was old beer that I hadn’t bothered drain-pouring yet. This made me question how to make these old beers taste better. What can be done?

I filtered the results and brought the best to you. 

Turns out, you will need a French press. I don’t have one so I say you can just kind of mix in the things some other way – but you’ll probably get better results using a French press (something I now am adding to my wish list).

There are two main ideas to bring new life to your old beer, but I want to quickly list all of the best ones here before we get into detail:

  • Mixing the beer with citrus or coffee in a French Press.
  • Adding bitters to your beer.
  • Adding/mixing salt in.
  • Adding margarita mix or making a Michelada.

Okay, so, the most serious of the beer re-fresh ideas is using a French press. But what do you press with your beer? Try these:

  • Remove the zest of a grapefruit (orange or lime could work too). Take that zest and half a grapefruit (with the peel removed) and put them through a French press. Take that and put it on the top of your beer (I obviously don’t know how French presses work). Gives your beer a fresh citrus vibe that overtakes the cardboard. Good for Pales and IPAs or any beer that can take on citrus.
  • Take cocoa nibs and put them through the French press process with your beer. Good for tart beers.
  • Take freshly ground coffee and put your beer through the French press process. Works best on Stouts but I think it would add something to most styles.
  • Slice half a mango, and use the French press process. Good for West Coast IPAs.
  • For Lager and Ambers it doesn’t matter, they already wack and there is no helping them…ZING!🤣

Not every idea for brightening your beer involves a French press. Another great (and easier) idea to try is adding a couple of drops of a Bitter. Let’s listen to Cara tell us about bitters and think about which ones would be good for the style of beer we want to taste fresh again:

So yeah, now I gotta get a French press – and never use it for coffee. Speaking of, here is a list of equipment and other items that would help you have a good beer freshening system:

Related reading:

If you have better tips for freshening your old beer, leave it for us in the comments.

5 Things About Beer Drinking That Should Be Talked About More

I sometimes have beer-influenced thoughts about the little things in drinking life. Randomly beginning with these five:

  1. That tingle you get through your body when the alcohol from the first sip of beer hits you right. It doesn’t happen every time at all, but when it does, yowza. This may be an only me thing, I dunno.
  2. How big of a bummer it is when you go to pour more beer in your glass from a can and the can is empty. Sadness.
  3. How nice of a feeling when you go to pour a beer from a can and there is more in it than you thought.
  4. How happy and sometimes creative a nice beer can make you.
  5. Taprooms and beer gardens are usually the most interesting-looking businesses in their neighborhood.

I expect this to be a little series that I will revisit on the blog now and again. Make sure to sign up for the Drinking & Thinking newsletter for more things like this.

Sam Adams Utopias For Sale (2023)

A proper place for a Utopias opening: a pickup tailgate

Where to Find Sam Adam Utopias For Sale

At the moment I write this post there are still 2023 Utopias from Sam Adams for sale. They are going fast though. So, where are Utopias for sale?

  • Total Wine – you can order through Instacart, where you might find an option other than Total Wine.
  • Costco – if you have one in town it might be worth a shot to try – it’s how I was able to try some.
  • Rando Liquor store – you can look at this wine site as they list some locations you can snake one if you’re local. Call down to the good bottle shop/beer bar in your area, they MIGHT have acquired a bottle or two.
  • Some Dude on the Internet – I do not delve into the online trading of beer, but you might and will know better how to find a trader than I.

A Review of Sam Adam’s Utopias 2023

This week I plopped down the tailgate of my old-timer Toyota pickup and (thanks to a Perfect Pour listener, Wazzu) got to have my first taste of a Sam Adam’s Utopias.

I don’t know how to describe it.

There is cherry, barrel, wood – very well balanced.

One tends to get caught up in the price of a bottle ($200 to $500 or so) and the brain goes “Let’s see what two hundred dollars tastes like.” But I think it’s the wrong way to approach it.

When you factor in the amount of alcs in the beer, it is kind of amazing how easy to drink it is. You get the burn from it, and that’s the only resistance keeping you from drinking it like a small beer.

You are paying for the experience, the bottle, the lore, that’s for sure. It’s impossible to have something taste like $250 and that is what you’re looking for, so it can mess you up.

At the moment of writing this, there is a $280 bottle I found on Instacart, if you’re interested – there are many other places, like Total Wine and Costco, etc. – it would make a damn fine gift for the beer geek in your life.

Utopias is one of the fun stories and experiences of beer geeking, I am happy to have tried some and look to do it again.

Funny Beer Shirts

You, or someone you know, likes drinking beer. And likes wearing shirts.

Craft beer geeks, regular beer drinkers, women, men, all the people, love funny beer shirts. And they need a good drinking shirt.

If you find a beer shirt funny, I have picked out the funniest ones to me, a beer drinking geek.

These are funny mens or womens shirts for Christmas, Halloween, Saint Patricks, birthdays, or anytime gifts.

*Disclosure heads up: I am an affiliate of TeePublic and Amazon so it’s possible I might get a tiny percentage if you end up buying something.

I am here to help you shop some graphic tshirt action (hoodies and other merch too.

I will give you my description of the graphic tee so you can get an idea of what to expect. Then you do a quick check of the price, and see if you have a good gift, or shirt for yourself:

As you will see, there are other types of merchandise you can put the shirt design on (stickers, mugs, etc.), and you can change the color of most of them. Hopefully, TeePublic will offer you a sale price too.

More Funny Beer Shirts To Come

I will keep updating this post on a yearly basis when I find more beer shirts to share. So relax, grab a day beer. A drinking tee. And have a nice day with your beer shirts.

P.S. During the course of putting this post together, I noticed a lot of you people searching for funny beer shirts are also searching for funny shirts from Pole Brewing.

I had not heard of any Pole Brewing so I didn’t get it. But it turns out there is a shirt out that is North Pole Brewing, and now I get it. Find some different designs on Amazon.

I also found another North Pole Brewing shirt on Signals that seems to be more popular.

Been wanting to find an Allagash White Sucks shirt somewhere, but haven’t found one. Might have to make it.

Oh, also, before you go, if you are looking for more beer gifts and items to maybe buy, I have a games for a beer garden post and gifts for a beer dude post to check out.