Barrel Aged Beer in Cans?

Pro green bottle...not sure I'd read too much into that.

 

I actually hate green bottles, but there must be a good reason they're using them. Perhaps it's better for lambics, I don't know. I'm just pro (preferably dark) bottles.

 

That's what they've always used and it is tradition. There are zero positives, and certainly negatives, but I'm not planning on giving Roy shit about it either the next time I stop by.

 

Next time you stop by, just ask him.

 

Were your soda taste tests blind? I suspect others with different results were. You admit to not comparing the same beer in can vs bottle. I suspect others have.

 

In a blind tasting I doubt anyone could tell which SNPA was poured from a can from 1 poured from a bottle.

 

I guess I have to beat a dead horse if people keep dragging the corpse out
BPA does leach (at a lower rate) without heat:

"When the polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins made from the chemical are exposed to hot liquids, BPA leaches out 55 times faster than it does under normal conditions." link 1

"The testing showed that more than 70 percent of the products released chemicals that acted like estrogen. And that was before they exposed the stuff to real-world conditions: simulated sunlight, dishwashing and microwaving" link 2

"We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher." link 3

 

Did I blind taste test when I was 7? No. But I have distinctive memories of tasting a plastic bottle coke instead of a can and asking why it tasted better - and then later with glass bottles. Since then, I can recall many times I have been given a soda (not in the Vessle it came in) and being able to discern which it came from.

People love to believe that because blind tests show a majority feel one way means that 100% are that same way, but that simply is illogical. Some people have different tastes.

I, for one, think Old rasp is horribly 1 note and not worth drinking, as I feel that most regular (and especially coffee) stouts are. But I have a bitter sensitivity to the point of excess, so I wholelly believe I am beyond 1 or more standard deviations. That said, that does not mean I am wrong, it just means that you can't taste what I can, and vice verse.

Different strokes.

 

You may want to re-think this. Appropriately conducted blind taste testing is in fact all about indivdual tastes. As way of testing out your own tastes they can be very informative (if properly conducted).

Here's an example of where someone uses what's known as a triangle test to same himself money.

https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/...st-that-can-help-you-save-money/#.Uf92HMu9KSM

Personally, if it were possible to set it up I'd bet you dollars to donuts that I could run a blind taste test with you as the sole participant in which you'd find yourself unable to reliably and consistently pick out which of your beer samples had been poured from a can and which from a bottled beer.

Furthermore I'd be willing to make that bet because I've been there and done that.

 

Unfortunately that horse isn't really dead yet, at least in the minds of many.

 

It's more than a simple majority though. From what I've seen (correct me if wrong), blind tests show no evidence that anyone can taste a difference between pouring from a bottle or can. Of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so I can't prove whether you have an unusual ability...

I hate (fresh) Old Raspy because of the bitterness too! But it's objectively undisputed that it does have some bitterness, even if other palates are less sensitive to and/or enjoy the bitterness. In contrast, it's not objectively established pouring from a can creates perceptibly different flavors than from a bottle.

 

The barrel-aged version is called Ola Dubh with 12, 16, 18 etc versions based on whether it was in Highland Park 12, 16, 18, etc barrels. You may (or may not) also be interested to know that once a year they produce a cask version that is only 4.5% but is amazing.

 

I want to say bottle, because it has more aesthetic appeal to me personally, but BBA TenFidy was in a can and that was one of the best BBA stouts ever. So I really don't care - it's more about the product in the package than the package itself.

 

Just a quick comment while I have a quick moment:

In my original post I was drawing on two things:

1) I have not had a stout in a can I have enjoyed as much as a stout in a bottle. Therefore, although it could just be luck, I presume that there might be somewhere there, and thus I'd prefer a bottle.

2) drawing on my experiences with other consumption, I have preferred bottles to cans, so I expect there might be something to why #1 is the way it is.

I am not saying definitely that if You served me random beer from a can vs from a bottle I could tell you which is wish. I am, however saying that for a product I like and enjoy (I very much used to really enjoy coke, drank it on the daily, and although I drink it rarely now, I still enjoy it), that I can taste a difference between them.

I think my enjoyment of a specific item plays a substantial role. Before this discussion, I had not given it much thought beyond "I can't seem to find stouts in cans that are as good as stouts in bottles."

I enjoy this discussion.

 

That's why the essence of something such as the triangle blind taste test is that all other things would be equal (approximately) except the container that held the pour and the challenge is being able to accurately tell which of the three samples was different from the other two when you don't know which container any sample was poured from.

So yes it's quite reasonable to believe that you have found more different stouts you enjoy in bottles than stouts you enjoy in cans, espcially when there are more stouts in bottles than in cans so the chances of finding one you enjoy are much better than finding one among the cans.

As for your other experiences with Coke, there you have a 50-50 chance of being right and the way our minds work we typically remember better when we were right than wrong. Also it's possible that when handed some Coke to drink you first heard the continer being opened and they are distinctly different cues. Hard to say without the controls introduced by the blind testing procedures.

So I guess the real point of all this is that blind taste testing is pretty critical to sorting out whether you are right in thinking you have the ability to tell which is better without knowing anything except what you experiencing when you are tasting.

 

Size and price is far more important to me than bottle or can. I would totally be down with a 6 pack of 8.4 ounce cans for the price of a bomber, especially if those are of beers at > 10% abv.

As for the question at hand, I like the aesthetic of bottles more so than cans. That said, I would guess that about 80% of the beer I have had in my fridge the past couple years has been canned and not bottled.

 

For inmediate consumption, im fine with cans but for aging, id prefer bottles.

 

Glad you made this thread @honkey

It's illuminating to see how much support bottles got given that the opposite could have easily happened in a thread about a different style. I think this is partially due to consumer expectations regarding styles and packaging. We expect certain things to look like certain things. It's not a coincidence that brewers who previously packaged in 12oz bottles, 22oz bottles, 750s, and 12 oz cans shifted gears to put out a NEIPA in 16oz cans. It has a lot to do with a perception of what feels "right"... and that's created by other examples. There probably aren't too many people here pouring a dubbel into a German krug. This thinking can trump anything else even though we'd like to think that "it's all about the beer."

 

I bought the heck out of BA Ten Fidy last year, so I can't say having a beer in a can limits me. In fact, a local brewery releases a few BA beers every year, and they're only sold in can 6 pack just like the rest of their beers. I certainly would prefer them in bottles, as I would any beer regardless of style, but the outlined example beers are still quality and I don't regret my purchases. If the option to maintain quality means forgoing bottles in favor of cans, I'll buy cans.

Voted: Bottles & Which Ever is Best for Quality

 

There is a fair bit of discussion in this thread on the topic of cans and cellaring.

Weedy (@honkey) and Shane (@Sixpoint) what are your thoughts concerning canned beer and cellaring (for example beers like non barrel-aged stouts and porters and barleywines)? Are these beers better off in bottles since there is air (oxygen) ingress through the cap liner? Does this oxygen ingress benefit the aging of these beers?

Cheers!