Old beer

I went round to Mikey's for a meal a while back. As usual, I took my own beer. Which beer, you ask? St. Bernardus Abt, obviously. But not just any old Abt.

"That's interesting," I told an uninterested Dolores after buying a new batch of Abt, "It looks like they've gone back to the old crown cork."

That's cool. I much preferred the old design. But I noticed something when I cracked the first bottle. It tasted rather different. Almost as if it had been aged,

Closer inspection revealed that wasn't  a coincidence. According to the sell-by date, it was, indeed, two years old.

 I took a mixed batch, old and new, over to Mikey's. And very6 nicely they went down, too. Both sorts.

Looking through the bag of empties the next day, I noticed a bottle of Rochefort 10. I hadn't taken that, had I? Sure enough, there was still a full bottle of the old Abt. Damn. I'd been saving that.

The Rochefort 10's with a sell-by date was in 2012. So, assuming their usual 5-year best by date, I make it 16 years old. 

Why didn't I notice? Because of those old Abts. I was expected some aged beer and that's what I got. Just a lot older than I realised.