Temperature changes spoil beer. Myth or fact?

Just keep it cool and dark til you have room in the fridge and you should be okay.

 

The fundamental issue is that beer stored warm (whether it was previously cold or not) accelerates the beer going stale (oxidative processes). If you have the ability to continuously store your beer cold it will result in an extended shelf life.

You can research Arrhenius Equation if you want more scientific details. Below is a handt graph that is helpful.

Cheers!

 

As you drink one put one in, problem solved

 

Skunky*? Keep it away from direct sunlight and don't let it get too warm. Room temp should be fine.

 

Really interesting! Thanks for sharing that.

Pretty scary graph when I contemplate all the room temperature (though it is definitely a little higher realistically) beer that I see everywhere.

 

Temperature is a problem when it gets too hot. If you keep your beer in a dark cool room you shouldn't worry.

 

Skunky, or skanky, as you put it, has nothing to do with temperature. Repeatedly heating and cooling the beer will not cause skunkiness. Skunkiness is a direct result of light exposure. That doesn't mean heating/cooling the beer won't negatively impact the flavor in other ways.

Like stated above, better to keep it cool if you can, but warming and cooling from room temp. to frig temp won't do a whole lot of damage.

 

The other posters have more or less answered your question in roundabout ways but I'll give you a direct answer - yes, this is a myth. Beer is quite resilient and can easily handle going from cold -> room temp -> cold again. It's not necessarily what you want for your expensive, rare cellar beer but for a random case that you're going to drink over a month or two there is no problem. Beer gets skunky from exposure to sunlight.

 

People like skanky beer more than they admit. You mean "skunky"... and this is something that can happen with sunlight exposure not temperature changes. Generally speaking, beer is better kept in the cold, but the idea that cold beer needs to stay in the fridge is considered a myth (to use your term). You can put that cold beer in a cool dark basement instead (this is the ideal over other non-refrigerated storage if possible). Just avoid really huge temperature swings or keeping beer in the heat.

Edit: a whole lotta people chiming in simultaneously

 

Well, from the graph a beer stored at 20 degrees C (68 degrees F) will start to show staling characteristics at around 100 days. This is consistent with AB's best by timeframe of 110 days for Budweiser.

Beer is indeed best stored cold.

Cheers!

 

very fact.

 

A few folks have posted about temperature swings (e.g., cold to warm to ...).

The changing of temperatures is not a big issue. The big issue is the time spent at warm/hot temperatures since higher temperatures accelerate oxidative processes which result in the beer going stale.

Cheers!

 

If temperature changes wreck beer then we would have no IPA. It arrived after a journey of several months through conditions going from cold to equatorial and was considered better than when it left.

 

In thinking about acquiring and storing beer you might also find this short article helpful.

http://upstart.bizjournals.com/views/columns/first-draft/2008/05/02/Beer-Storage-Tips.html?page=all

 

Speaking of a myth!

Seriously, I have no idea how much of the story of IPA origins are true, but ... if it was heavily hopped at the start of the journey, it was a malty mess by the time it arrived!

 

Nothing short of nuclear fallout could alter the taste of an AB product. A brief temperature change should be fine.

 

The British brewed IPAs of circa 1800 were quite different from contemporary American style IPAs, The hoppy nature of the British IPAs featured the bitterness aspect and while hops were also utilized for flavor/aroma the hops they used (e.g., East Kent Goldings) were not the center piece like the flavor/aroma hops used for modern day American style IPAs (e.g., Citra, Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, etc.). This is a long winded way of saying that British IPAs of the 1800s were more resilient than contemporary American style IPAs and would have handled age better. In fact the British IPAs were aged in wooden casks at the brewery for “at least nine months before it was shipped to India or prepared for domestic consumption.”

The other beer that was shipped from Britain to India was a hoppy Porter (East India Porter): http://www.beeradvocate.com/mag/6212/east-india-porter/

Generous hopping rates used for both Pales Ales (i.e., IPA) and Porters (i.e., East India Porter) definitely has a preservative effect permitting beers to be exported to India and enjoyed there.

Needless to say modern day beer drinkers enjoy the pronounced aroma/flavors of hops like Citra, Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, etc. so contemporary American style IPAs are best consumed very fresh before hop aroma fade occurs (which can happen very quickly for beers which feature dry hopped aromas).

Cheers!

P.S. The above quote is from Mitch Steels’ IPA book. There is a wealth of information in that book including the historical brewing of IPA in Great Britain in the late 1700’s/1800’s.

 

My understanding from reading more recent historical accounts is that the beer shipped to India was primed in the casks for continued fermentation/conditioning during the voyage, which would have contributed significantly to the preservation of the brew, including through the temperature changes. In fact, warmer temps are necessary for bottle/cask conditioning.