Does SN Pale Ale usually look like this?

looks like some yeast settlement. It's fine.

 

SNPA is bottle conditioned so you can expect some sediment with that beer. If it bothers you, you can decant next time and leave the sediment on the bottom of the bottle.

Cheers!

 

How did I not know it was bottle conditioned? Seems like a pretty big fact for me not to notice.

 

Below is the description on the Sierra Nevada website. I really don’t know if there is mention of bottle conditioning on the SNPA label.

“Pale Ale

The beginning. A classic. Our most popular beer.

Pale Ale began as a home brewer’s dream, grew into an icon, and inspired countless brewers to follow a passion of their own. Its unique piney and grapefruit aromas from the use of whole-cone American hops have fascinated beer drinkers for decades and made this beer a classic, yet it remains new, complex and surprising to thousands of beer drinkers every day. It is—as it always has been—all natural, bottle conditioned and refreshingly bold.”

Cheers!

 

How many craft beers are not bottle conditioned? Seems to me that most are, yet I rarely notice any visible yeast.

 

Another interesting fact about SN Pale Ale is they blend 12 different batches into one for bottling, so the PA you're drinking is actually blended. Helps to ensure every bottle tastes the same. Found that to be interesting

 

I usually find that sediment in Celebration because it's the only hoppy beer I drink from SN when it's "old".

 

With the latest label design changes, it's on the rear label.


But on the cans, it's more visible.

 

With well over 1,000 packaging breweries in the US, it's hard to make a blanket statement but bottle-conditioning on a consistent basis is pretty difficult on a large commercial scale (SN are among the few experts at it).

I'd think most "craft" bottling breweries are force-carbonating, and with the smallest percentage kraeusening/bunging/bulk conditioning.

 

My understanding was that bottle conditioning is the best option - for many reasons - for small breweries (most craft breweries by far) so maybe not within the realm of your biggest players, but you know, the little guys... ?

 

Yeast are put into the bottle just before sealing it - natural carbonation...

 

Add a little more "fuel" (sugar of some sort) to the beer when bottling. What yeast is left in the beer will devour the fuel and create carbonation and a smooth body.

 

Not yeast, more food for the residual yeast already in the beer.

Now this article says we're both correct, but I've added the barest grain of yeast to a bottled home-brew that I thought was "stuck" in its carbonation and ended up with a huge gusher -- I waited out the carbonation process (bottle-conditioning with light dry malt at the time of initial bottling) and all was well.

 

Bottle Conditioning adds production time. The majority of commercial beer (including from small craft breweries) is not bottle conditioned.

This topic was discussed before: http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...bottle-condition-their-12oz-offerings.113585/

Cheers!

 

Not a dumb question

Well, my thoughts of bottle conditioning come from a different perspective. When I homebrewed my own beer, the process included adding yeast to the beer before fermentation. When the beer was fermented and then bottled yeast would also enter the bottles through your siphoning of the beer from the fermenter to the bottles. After that the bottles get set somewhere to continue to age (condition) in the bottle for a short while before being drinkable and the yeast and sediment would settle to the bottom of the bottle. When pouring these you have to be careful not to stir up the sediment and get it into your glass.

It was my understanding that modern brewing methods...ie. breweries, have a process for removing sediment and conditioning the beer before bottling thus sediment free beer. Some brewers and/or some beers, are purposely bottle conditioned just to add a little something different. To me it is just like Homebrewing. Or at least that's how I always viewed it. Just a bit more yeasty. When I had bottle condiotioned beer I would let them settle before pouring and be careful not to stir the sediment. Maybe things have changed. And then again maybe I'm completely off base.

 

thanks - quick question/clarification request - the difference between bottle-conditioning in general, and krausening, is that krausening involves wort that's already being fermented, whereas bottle-conditioning that is not krausening is basically just the addition of malt?

 

Bottle Conditioning involves adding a fermentable (I use sugar for my homebrewed beer) to the beer and letting the yeast conduct a secondary fermentation within the bottle. The principle result is a carbonated beer but there are other benefits as well:

· The yeast during the secondary fermentation consumes oxygen that is present within the bottle at packaging

· Some conditioning aspects of the beer occurs as well as part of the secondary fermentation process

Cheers!