Canned draught beers

Pasteurization would take place after the beer is fermented either while going into the bright tank (flash pasteurization) or after the bottle/can is filled and is moving along the belt (tunnel pasteurization). In the former, the beer is heated inside a pipe while transferring. In the latter, the bottle or can is heated up to pasteurization temperatures for the inside liquid and then cooled down. I believe those are the two popular methods.

 

Beer is boiled when the wort is prepared. The pasteurization refers to treatment of the beer after fermentation, at packaging time.
Draft beer traditionally has always been un-pasteurized, which is why 'back in the day' (which for me is 50 years ago) draft beer was almost always a much better tasting product than it's canned or bottled counterparts, since the flavors were not affected by 'cooking' them out with heat.
Packaged (ie, canned or bottled) beer that is not pasteurized is usually either cold filtered or in the case of products such as many produced by Sierra Nevada, bottle conditioned.

By the way, it's not necessary to boil the product to achieve pasteurization...heating it up in the 170°F range (I forget the exact temperature required) does the job.
Pasteurization can also be achieved without any heat all: the fresh ciders I buy from a couple of orchards here in NJ are actually pasteurized by exposure to UV light in the packaging setup.

 

The current US regulations on using the term "Draft/Draught" for beer (from the TTB Beverage Alcohol Manual Vol. 3, Chapter 4):

​

See above legal loophole - "pasteurized beer may be described as “DRAFT BREWED,” “DRAFT BEER FLAVOR,” etc., PROVIDED the fact that the beer is pasteurized is also noted on the Label."

Traditionally, US draft beer in kegs was ALWAYS unpasteurized - before the invention of the Sankey keg and their use giving brewers the ability to flash-pasteurize, there was no way to pasteurize kegged beer. In the US, even after the industry's near-universal adoption the Sankey, many US brewers continue to only sell unpasteurized kegs - including AB, Miller and Coors. (According to Peter-Wolfe, IIRC, AB is only now experimenting with flash-pasteurization of their draught in some of their US breweries).

The rules for labeling unpasteurized bottled beer as "draft/draught" long pre-date the era of Big Beer and date back to at least 1935. When the "real draft beer in a can" method of microfiltering/sterile fill became popular in the 1960s and most every brewer had a "real draft" version of their beer, the BATF put out the Circular USE OF THE TERM "DRAFT BEER" ON LABELS AND IN ADVERTISING OF BEER.

Before that era, in the 1930s-1950s or so, probably dozens, if not hundreds, of US brewers bottled unpasteurized beer in large ½-gallon "picnic" bottles in the post-Repeal, often labeling them with some reference to "draft/draught" beer:

Miller Genuine Draft is not pasteurized - it's microfiltered/sterile filled - in Miller's jargon, "Cold Filtered". It followed the then current regulations of the BATF for the use of the term "Draft". The FDA is not the primary Federal regulator of beer - that is the successor organization to the BATF, the TTB.

 

The BATF Ciricular noted above is dated 1965 - Miller Genuine Draft was first released in ~1986. Dozens of brewers in the US marketed "real draft beer in a can (bottle)" in the 1960s - the best remembered regional brands were Piels Real Draft in the northeast, and Hamm's Draft Beer (mid-West>West Coast) which came in a barrel-shaped steel can, but many other large regional and national brewers also had (often short-lived) "real draft" bottled/canned versions of their beers.

Brewmaster August Haffenreffer of the Boston brewing family did some of the early research on the microfiltered/sterile-fill method of canning unpasteurized beer (even working with the Millipour filter company after Haffenreffer was sold to their cousins who owned Narragansett). Coors also did a lot of the development of the technique, and also pioneered the use of the aluminum beer which was needed for the sterile fill method.

 

Miller Genuine Draft in cans and bottles is unpasteurized, so it meets the basic definition -
"DRAFT BEER/DRAUGHT BEER – Unpasteurized* malt beverage..."

 

I did not claim that brewers weren't involved in the post-Repeal era regulations of the industry - they were very involved and often objected to certain regulations and legal definitions and they were often changed by the Feds to meet the contemporary industry standards and practices.

I do not agree with the concept that "draught/draft = unpasteurized beer" dates from the 1960s or the 1980s "real draft beer in a bottle/can" era - the BATF Circular clearly notes it's from a FAAA decision in 1935. Nor was it "at the behest of Big Beer" - I'd argue that "Big Beer" as such did not yet exist (the Big 3 national brewers - AB, Schlitz, Pabst - were all around 3-4% market share in the 30s) and the term is more associated with the Beer Wars era of the 1970s-1990s. And numerous very small brewers marketed bottled, unpasteurized "draft" beer in ½-gallon "picnic" bottles and jugs during that era and, so, also took full advantage of the rule.

 

Are you trolling me? It says that you can call PASTEURIZED beer in containers of 1 gallon or larger (i.e. mini-keg sized and up) "draft/draught", otherwise the main definition applies:
"DRAFT BEER/DRAUGHT BEER – Unpasteurized malt beverage".

 

Crowlers are awesome. Fresh draft beer poured and canned right before your eyes. What's not to like?

 

"draft"

 

Everyone could just type draft. Some people just like to feel fancy.

 

Haha 1072 is high? My last beer was 1090. I wonder what it tastes like before they water it down...

 

Don't most pasteurize, which ones don't out of curiosity?

 

most keg beer is not pastuerized in the US. this includes the major macros.
Anchor is the notable exception and does pasteurize it's kegs. this may have changed with new management but I don't know for certain.
most imported kegs to US market are pasteurized. the long journey in a container ship, days or weeks in customs, transport to a distro, then finally to the bar or retailer requires extra protection.
bottle beer is a whole other topic and has been covered within this thread.
Cheers.

 

Industry Circular Number: 65-1 - January 5, 1965
Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division