Motivated by stochastic convection-diffusion problems we derive a posteriori error estimates for non-stationary non-linear convection-diffusion equations acting as a deterministic paradigm. The problem considered here neither fits into the standard linear framework due to its non-linearity nor into the standard non-linear framework due to the lacking differentiability of the non-linearity. Particular attention is paid to the interplay of the various parameters controlling the relative sizes of diffusion, convection, reaction, and non-linearity (noise).(2.1) Here, Ω ⊂ R d , d ∈ {2, 3}, is a bounded polyhedral domain with Lipschitz boundary Γ. The final time T is arbitrary, but kept fixed in what follows. We assume that the data satisfy the following conditions (compare [21, §3] and [25, §6.2]):(A1) ε > 0, ν ≥ 0,