Do you remember beer's "dark days?"

No. Every time I have a Heineken from a closed case, can, or keg I get no skunk at all.

And what does this have to do with Riesling... let alone the well-written, informative dissertation I linked to?

 

It's a fairy tale believed by (along with many other brewing industry and beer marketing people)
The Master Brewers Association of The Americas:

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i think there is something to both sides of the argument, just thought I would throw my input in there. thanks for your info, no harm intented. maybe we should only drink Budweiser in brown bottles, that would eliminate most of there competition......Miller High Life, Heineken, Beck's, etc.......Seems a vast part of the international brewing community ignores MBAA claims or warnings. I would think dark brown bottles are no more expense than clear or green ones.
I'm cool ! nuff said

 

The problem of lightstruck beer isn't the bottle's color but exposing those bottles to light (particularly to sun and fluorescent light). The convention of putting some domestic beers, many ales and imports in green or clear bottles for the US market pre-dates the era of self-service stores, open sixpack cardboard "baskets", and clear glass doors on coolers, etc.

That marketing tradition (very successful for most brewers, by the way) and consumer prejudice (green=premium, clear=purity, etc) continues despite the science behind it.

* (In the case of Miller High Life, they use a "light stable" hop extract to avoid skunking.)

 

Skunked=Ligthstruck Here is some fairy tale for you.
http://beersensoryscience.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/lightstruck/


High heat, even for short periods accelerates staling. Breweries will simulate a year at lower temps by heating a beer at 160F for 24 hours.

 

Bump. Was on the not so smart phone, please read the reply above.

 

Dallas Alice. Is that a Little Feat reference? From "Willin'".

If only the Fat Man lived longer.

 

They weren't all that dark and nightmarey. Honestly. The rest of the world still made some great beers, and were nice enough to let us have some We were drinking Pilsners (the real deal), Dunkels, O'fests, Bocks, Stouts, Berliner Weiss, etc. Plus, even the domestic brewers had more flavorful offerings that may not have been their main beers, but were definitely available. And 'beer bars' started to show up in the early 80s around here. It was a pretty cool time- especially considering the music...

 

Weed, whites, and wine... but no beer.

 

Weed and beer were in direct competition. If any alcohol was consumed with the former, it was wine because

True fact! I read it the The Brewery Worker union magazine, in the article Will Pot Replace Beer?

 

Since the thread's been bumped...
Dms, oxidation, even sulfury yeast signatures, all play a part in what you are describing, and they are distinctly different from 'skunkiness'. Also check out this article by Lew Bryson, there's some good info in there:
http://www.houblon.net/spip.php?article681

 

We called Haffenreffer private stock the green death. the best part of the beer was the puzzle caps.The more you drank the harder the puzzles got.

 

Explains why I was on the other side of the dorm room.

 

There were no dark days, just a process of evolution.

 

“And 'beer bars' started to show up in the early 80s around here. It was a pretty cool time- especially considering the music...”

So Michael, do you have the soundtrack to the movie Hot Tub Time Machine?

Cheers!

 

Pretty comprehensive stuff -- though pretty extreme. Would have been nice to see what happened if he brought the (chilled) beer home and stored it in the garage and then cooled a couple down, day-to-day, as I often do... with no real adverse results.

 

This is incorrect. Unless you had a friend who could point you to the very few choices that were a cut above the sea of bad adjunct lagers in the late 60's, it was dark indeed. I drank Piels, Pabst, Carling, Schaeffer, Rheingold, and finally settled on Budweiser. At least Budweiser back then tasted better than today.

For me, trying Lowenbrau, and going to work in Manhattan in 1974, which let me try even better imports, changed my beer drinking life permanently. No evolution there, it was coming from dark directly to light, from ignorance to enlightenment.

And then when I tasted that same level of greatness in an American beer? Wow what a wonderful day that was.

Best of all, I believe the best of American brewing is still ahead of us.

 

'80s family holiday beer of choice was St. Pauli Girl, ya know, for special occasions. Regular family gathering beer was Blatz. I used to walk around asking for sips out of my uncles' beers.

In the early '90s, i drank so much keystone light that i think i was single handedly funding their operations. No bitter beer face and bottled beer taste in a can!

By mid to late '90s was drinking imports and some craft. The grolsch swingtop bottles were a favorite and anything from sammy smiths. Craft-wise, Pete's wicked, goose island and lienies's were heavily in the rotation. and i was getting crazy a merlin's ale (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46/150).

Anything that had an ABV over 5.0% blew you away.

 

Can't say that I do, though I probably still have some of those songs on vinyl. Left of the Dial is a much better collection, though-
http://www.allmusic.com/album/left-of-the-dial-dispatches-from-the-80s-underground-mw0000401755

I accompanied many of those songs with a Dinkel Acker, Aass Bock or Guinness Extra Stout back in the day...