quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
To me, beer is MUCH better in a bottle. Cans have a plastic coating inside that affects the taste.
Glass all the way for me; it's not even close.

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Originally posted by HRK:

And todays cans are better than bottles for several reasons, light degradation of the hops in bottled, however, who stores their beer out in the light, and can tech has advanced so your beer doesn't taste like tin.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

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Originally posted by egregore:
It's funny how the otherwise very same beer tastes better from a bottle than a can.

I assume - if true - this means glass bottles. There is no reason (from their point of view) why it couldn't be put in plastic bottles. I believe this is done at sports venues (sample of one over 20 years ago) to avoid broken glass hazards, although cans would also accomplish this.

I have never seen a plastic bottle of beer. I don't think plastic can do the pressures associated with beer and its carbonation, maybe that's not the case as soda does just fine but there must be a reason.

They do make metal bottles, those are common at sporting events:

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Originally posted by TexasScrub:
Folks in these parts ain't gonna take this lightly.

Lone Star Beer. The National Beer of Texas.

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
To me, beer is MUCH better in a bottle. Cans have a plastic coating inside that affects the taste.
Glass all the way for me; it's not even close.

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Originally posted by cruiser68:

Well that’s a bummer. I much prefer beer in bottles over cans.

Speaking of beer. I have had a few golf trips to Scotland, Ireland, and the UK. Seems like we don’t get hangovers from their beer. Some have said it’s due to a lack of preservatives in it. Not one of the twelve of us got a hangover including many late night drinking affairs.

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Originally posted by Captain Morgan:
As far as skunked beer, Ive had it more from aluminum than bottles.

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Originally posted by maxwayne:
the manager of the liquor department

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
To me, beer is MUCH better in a bottle. Cans have a plastic coating inside that affects the taste.
Glass all the way for me; it's not even close.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
To me, beer is MUCH better in a bottle. Cans have a plastic coating inside that affects the taste.
Glass all the way for me; it's not even close.

I have never experienced this.
<snip>

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
To me, beer is MUCH better in a bottle. Cans have a plastic coating inside that affects the taste.
Glass all the way for me; it's not even close.

I have never experienced this.

What is it you are tasting?

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Hmmm. I always thought that the easiest way to skunk a beer was to let it go from cold to warm back to cold. Ie, if you bought cold beer you had to keep it cold. My anecdotal experience has backed this up. And yes I’m talking cans. I always called that skunked beer. Is there skunked beer and then another name for what I just described? If it is merely UV that skunks beer then it would be nearly impossible to skunk a can right?

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It’s an old wives’ tale we’ve all heard. Likely you were in high school and had a friend with a car who had an older brother, and that older brother could buy beer. Everyone went to someone’s house whose parents were out of town, and the crew drank as much of this beer as they could. What was left was put into the trunk of this kid’s car. He drove around with it for a week, and the next weekend it was put into the fridge of someone else’s unsuspecting parents. Inevitably, someone who grabbed a beer that night would say, “Ah man! The beer got skunky!”. Sound familiar? It is a worldwide myth that somehow temperature cycling “skunks” beer. The truth is that temperature cycling has little to no effect on beer freshness.

Think of it this way, if cold beer warming and then cooling again a single time ruined it, then all beer imported from Europe would be destroyed before you bought it. On its long journey across the Atlantic, this beer has likely changed temperatures several times, yet it is pretty easy to find non-skunked imported beer. The reason why? Skunking doesn’t come from temperature swings.

Temperature does affect beer. However, it is not temperature cycling that destroys beer, but exposure to warm temperatures. Beer is best preserved when kept cold… kind of like milk. A gallon of 2% will last a lot longer in your fridge than on your kitchen counter. Much the same way, keeping beer refrigerated will keep its flavor as the brewer intended for much longer. Keeping beer at room temperature can drop a beer’s shelf life from nearly six months to only a few weeks, and exposing the same beer to very warm temperatures can affect its flavor in a matter of a couple of days.

The good news? It can never make you sick. It just might not taste very good. Hop flavors and aromas will be diminished, first. Malt flavors that used to remind you of chocolate and caramel will begin to meld into a generic sickly “sweet” flavor, and in some beers reminders of wet cardboard and paper can develop. Not pleasant, but none of this will remind you of a skunk.

So, the moral of the story is to keep your beer cold when you can, but don’t worry about beer warming up and then cooling again. It’s totally fine to drink it, and as long as it wasn’t kept warm for too long the flavor likely wasn’t changed.


What happens when light hits beer?

All beers are brewed with hops. Hops are the ingredient that lends bitterness to beer, helps preserve beer, and in some styles lends a lot to the flavor and aroma of the beer. One of the compounds in hops that helps to lend bitterness to beer, humulone, is the culprit when it comes to beer being hurt by exposure to light.

During the boil, humulone’s shape is changed. It is isomerized, a chemistry term meaning that the bonds inside the molecule have been rearranged. After this isomerization has happened, the compound is called iso-humulone. If iso-humulone comes into contact with UV light, commonly found in sunlight and fluorescent lighting, a reaction occurs that creates a chemical called 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, or 3-MBT. Unfortunately, 3-MBT smells almost exactly like skunk spray, changing the aroma of the beer dramatically. Even worse, this reaction can happen in a matter of minutes.


How do you keep it from happening?

So, what can you do? The only way to protect beer from skunking is to keep it away from UV light. This means using LED lights in beer coolers, or applying UV blocking film to fluorescent lights. Keep beer displays in stores away from windows, unless those windows have UV blocking film on them. Beers in clear and green glass are most susceptible. Green glass only blocks about 25% of the harmful rays, and clear glass doesn’t block anything. Brown glass is fairly effective, blocking 98%, but you can still skunk a beer in brown glass (trust me, I’ve done it). Of course cans and kegs offer 100% protection, but not every brewery offers every product in cans.


Can I un-skunk my beer?

No, unfortunately once this compound has formed it is there and won’t disappear. The human threshold for 3-MBT is very low, meaning even a tiny amount will be detectable. And, as we mentioned before, it only takes 10-15 minutes of direct UV exposure to skunk a beer. Now, there is some good news. While humans are very sensitive to 3-MBT, we also get used to it very quickly. So, if you end up with a skunky beer that you still want to enjoy, just keep smelling it. After a few minutes of constantly sniffing your beer, you won’t notice the skunk aroma anymore.