How to make an old beer taste better

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:

• The best looking (to me) French press that is nicely rated – you can see the beer you’re pressing without obstructions: Bodum Brazil French Press.
• One can always use a new grader in the kitchen, this one will zest all that citrus and some chocolate too.
• If fresh ground coffee in your beer press is what you’re thinking, check out this Kaffe electric coffee grinder.
• Stock up on margarita mix for your next old beer festival. A Michelada mix might even work better.

Related reading:

• My Drinking & Thinking version of this making old beer taste fresh, post.
• Uses for old beer besides drinking it.
• The post I pressed for this idea.

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