German craft beer

Yea, I suspect so.

 

Just one man's thoughts, I wouldn't put too much stock in it. It could have been a brewery problem, or a problem somewhere along the chain. I bought other Löwenbräu O-Fest bottles from that same store with different dates hoping to get something close to that first one that I had, but they were all the same. But anyway, the takeaway is the same - Löwenbräu makes a pretty good Oktoberfest if you can get it in good shape.

 

No retailer should be exposing beer to almost any direct source of light. To reinforce @herrburgess 's observations here, I have also have had a skunked beer from a brown bottle, but deliberately. Two bottles that came from a fresh and sealed case. One kept in the fridge and the other given several hours in direct summer sun, then chilled with the other. Upon opening side by side there was no doubt that one was skunked and the other not. (You never forget that smell if you've ever had a dog that tangled with a skunk!!!)

Compared to clear or green, the brown bottle greatly slows but does does not entirely prevent skunking. Those bottles that @mjtierney2 has mentioned were most likely left for sometime in direct sunlight by the retailer before sale (warm to the touch and skunked). Key to remember is that the wavelengths of light that cause skunking are not restricted to only direct sunlight, so it is also possible for some quite common types of indoor artificial lighting to also cause skunking of beer in brown bottles (even beer kept in coolers) if the exposure time is long enough.

I've lost count of the number of shops (in the US and Europe) that I didn't bother to visit because I've noticed the beer bottles being used as a form of window display/advertising to let folks know what was on offer in the shop.

 

I'm inclined to think the problem is with the shop because of the consistency you found there and because of a shortage of comment about a similar problem by reviewers ( both European and US) of the beer. Is there another convenient place for you to try buying the beer?

 

Ha, well it's moot now as I am leaving Deutschland for good on Thursday! One walking-distance retailer has HB, Paulaner, and Löwenbräu at the end of July/beginning of August. Another, tram-distance, has H-P. However, usually with the beer stores, once the O-Fest is gone, it's gone. They usually do not restock or reinforce after the initial sale of [x] cases. That's when they start popping up (often cheaper) at the grocery stores. So sometimes one has options and sometimes not, it depends a lot on the timing of things.

 

Ah yes, I do remember now skimming past something about you moving on. With luck you'll be settling in a place with a few more options. Travel safely!

 

Therein is my point. I have to imagine those bottles must have been sitting in the wrong place for a very long time. You say your experiment was several hours, but in direct light the whole time. A window seat won't collect direct sunlight all day.

Or run one over on a dark night (Should'a looked left, should'a looked right, didn't see the station wagon car...), yet it seems there are many BA members who often mistake "skunk" for something completely different.

 

I was more focused on the brewery vs retailer issue than on actual timing. But where direct sunlight is involved even for only a few hours per day a "very long" time is a days not weeks. I've seen window displays where the sun is on the bottles for at least 1 or 2 hours per day. Thus the bottle accumulates 7 hours of sun light in a week to 10 days. Also, the absence of skunking complaints in the reviews of the beer suggest retailer fault not brewery.

I agree there are lots of BA members who confuse skunk with other things. I think they've just picked up the term as apply to something they don't care for.... Also,I don't fully understand how people can claim that a brewery like Heineken skunks their beer deliberately while only doing so for the beer in green bottles but not for their beer in cans or kegs....

 

Completely understood.

Okay, but now we're talking about some very long time without stock rotation. I roll my eyes enough when I see green bottles on the top shelves in stores -- directly under, and very close to the ceiling lights. Now I have to worry about the brown bottles too?

On a serious note, I may have to sacrifice a brown bottle for experimentation. I've had plenty that have gone "stale" from age (and probably heat) that I recognize the changes in characteristics, but I'll have to see if I can deliberately skunk a brown bottle.

But maybe the absence in reviews is a result of the same misunderstanding/misinformation as when they may point it out. But now that's a completely different discussion about reviewing and flavor recognition for another thread.

And it's usually obvious that they've never had a Heineken that wasn't skunked, or we're back to that inexperienced mis-recognition...

 

This may help with your skunk testing

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/question-about-skunking.69167/

 

Oh, I'm one of the ones who's suggested a vigorous pour of a suspected skunked beer to help dissipate skunk. It's worked well for me historically.

 

For good? I'm betting you'll be bock!! ;-) Where to back here?

Prosit!!!

 

Maybe to visit, but unsere Zeit hier ist um! Going to Virginia.

 

Matt, I hope that you and your family have a good trip home.

Cheers!

 

Is this the type of shake-up you think German brewing needs, @boddhitree? (FYI, that's Stone's Greg Koch smashing Fernsehbiere with a big...uh...stone.)

 

And what are all of those blue bottle/cans? Some sort of Coors specialized packaging?

 

They need, in typical German fashion, to have a super serious 3 block-long demonstration against Fernsehbiere, and, in order to get on the news with even better publicity, throw empty cans of Fernsehbiere at passer-bys to show their utter contempt of these sorts of beers.

Or..., they could stage a sit in, with beer and bratwurst of course, at the major Fernsehbiere breweries and block the employees from entering. Can we think of any other ways to get on TV and drum up free PR?

And yes, you can get those cans online here in Germany of terrible American beer.

1. Here. The only craft on that page seems to be Barking Squirrel Crafting Lager.
2. Here.
3. Here.
4. Here.
5. Here.
6. Here.
7. Here.
8. Here.
9. On Amazon.
10. Or most likely, here, at US-Shop Berlin.

So, if you're opening a beer emporium and want to make a statement, it wouldn't be hard to rustle up those beers. I'm sure they got someone to do the advance legwork, after all, one doesn't just find a huge boulder like that lying around, do you?

I think what they did is hilarious, and I think the America brands are there for the American investors to see that their money is going to a good cause, for they wouldn't know what Fernsehbier is if it slapped them in the mouth.

Maybe I could do something like that as performance art?

 

On the skulking mechanism, brown bottles let much less of the wavelengths that cause skulking, but are not imperviorus. Fluorescent lights have spectral peaks at 550 nm, which will skunk beer, even in brown glass. It takes longer in brown vs green or flint glass.

Here is a little study that might help. Skunking

 

You as tired of the auto-correct as I am?