Tap (Draft) vs. Bottled Beer

usually you are having tap beer at a bar and bottles at home.
wonder if the setting influences taste?

also carbonation from tap can be different than bottle.

 

I thought the difference between DFH 120 tap vs bottle was pretty noticeable. Bottle it's great but on tap it's phenomenal.

 

I thought so, too. Same with Great Lakes Nosferatu. I love it in bottles and just like it on tap.

There may be a temperature issue, too. I frequently encounter beers on tap that are served WAY too cold.

 

I tend to lean toward tap, though there are plenty of bottled - heck even canned these days - that are really great. Now, if I'm in Utah, it will be bottle all the time due their weird laws about 3.2% on tap. Cask beers, now those tend to be ones I will always try just cause of the nature of cask beer. Some I've really like, others, well not so much. But overall, I do like the tap option.

 

They are no different... Bottles are often older and get a bad rap..... But the same beer that goes into kegs goes into bottles... Kegs are almost always fresher... This is like saying 1 day old IPA and 2 month old IPA, whats the difference? Yes carbonation is slightly different aswell. But same beer.

 

O2 will oxidize the hop oils quickly. Brewers with a premium bottling line will have very low levels of O2 in the packaged beer. Cap liner material is important to keep the O2 ingess low.
At least this is what I think. ;-)

 

With the exception of beer at the brewery, I've noticed few if any difference between tap and bottle. In fact, I prefer bottle because I have control of the temperature and pour.

but full disclosure: My on-tap drinking accounts for less than 20% of my total beer consumption, so I'm partial to the bottle (or can).

I should add that I *did* have a fantastic mug of Brooklyn Brown Ale earlier this week on tap ... just perfect. My bet is it was better than the bottled version.

 

Oxidation isn't always a bad thing. The reason cask ale outshines its bottled or keg siblings is that air gets into the cask and brings about much greater complexity and more flavour levels.It's a short lived improvement but when it's there it's really there.You just have two or three days in which to catch it.
Of course, long term oxidation has little to recommend it unless you're a vinegar producer.
Caveats always apply. I've had pretty ropey cask ale .I had to send a pint back this week in one of our best pubs , it looked superb but there was a hint of vinegar , the landlord tried some, declared it rubbish , took it off sale and spent ages cleaning out the line.I got a fresh pint straight from the cellar while this was being done.But also I've had during this week two substandard bottles, one with no carbonation and tasting of sherry and the other one not much better.Last year I even found a bottle with no beer in it at all!

 

I know what you are talking about, but the quick fade of hop aroma in the IPAs being talked about can be due to O2 in the package. Some brewers know this and are diligent in removing O2 from all the brewery processes and bottles. Hop aromatics, due to the essential oils, are fragile and won't last long, why accelerate their demise with O2?

 

But see, you're from the Island Nation, where the tradition of great beer is much more steeped than here in the Colonies. You guys haven't put up w/ substandard beer for centuries. Most landlords here don't declare anything as "rubbish", it's all about the sale. It's getting better all the time, but we still have a long ways to go.

 

To be honest, we've also had a fair bit of bad beer too. I was advised as a young lad to always choose what the landlord was drinking.I'm also sure that one of the reasons for the "keg revolution"in the 60s was to avoid spoilage and loss by sending beer out in sealed containers.Luckily we were blessed in my part of the world with good local breweries. By judicious selection of pubs - we knew which the good ones were-we could always get a decent pint and I never touched keg beers.

 

Yes, I realize that y'all went through the "keg" thing and that bottled Euro lager is quite popular, too. But is that not sort of an aberration, considering the re-birth of cask ale and the illustrious history of English beer?. All things British are quite fascinating to me.

 

I have noticed quite a pronounced difference in everything I've had from Firestone Walker. On tap most of the offerings have blown my mind. When I later acquire the same beer in bottles they are still very good but seem to lack the same wow factor.

 

Never had a bottle of it, but the backwoods bastard I had on tap the other day was a religious experience

 

Absolutely 100% agree. The first time I ever had BB it was on tap, and it was magic. I bought my first bottles later in the year, and they were merely excellent.

 

well most good Belgians beer (the real stuff made in Belgium) is bottled. In fact I had Dupont Saison on tap and I do not know if it was old or what but its was terrible. in fact in Belgium I bet there is less beer on draft at most places than bottles.

that is unique to them though.

 

Agreed; BB on tap was the beer that started me on this odyssey!

 

I don't understand this at all, it must be the place you had them. Both are way better when fresh on tap.

 

Why not? I think it's a perfect example how good it is fresh on tap, but a slightly aged bottle can be just mediocre. I find it to be the same with most IPAs unless you're drinking at some craphole that has good beer on tap, but it's either not fresh or they have dirty tap lines. I've yet to find a place with acclaimed ales that didn't take care of their kegs. It's usually some dive w crappy beer options where I'll stick to a bottle.

 

“Both are way better when fresh on tap.”

The key word in that sentence is “fresh”. As a beer consumer I have no idea about:

· How old is that keg?

· How was that keg treated during transport and storage? Was it continuously refrigerated?

· Was the keg abused in transport?

· Etc.

Cheers!

P.S. I have ‘lucked out’ and had both Sculpin and Pliny the Elder draft beers that were not abused (i.e., “fresh”) but unfortunately I have been unlucky as well.

P.S.S As you can read above, it is not just the bar that could be the problem 'area'. It could also be the wholesale distributor. It could also be the transporter.