Cans v. Bottles

I think both. I did a three year vertical of Ten Fidy a few years ago and there was not meaningful difference between the three pours.

 

I've done blind tastes of a few and chose the bottle each time. I can't explain it. This is for Big Eye IPA, Sculpin, and Boston Lager. 100% of the time I choose the bottle, blind taste test.

I'm trying to shake the old stereotype of cans = cheap & inferior. That's why the blind tasting is in order.

 

If I have the option, I'll take cans. I can't tell the difference. Hop Nosh is one. Waiting to find some FRESH Sculpin in cans. Loose Cannon is another

 

Read this thread:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/old-ipas.177842/

It's long buy the posts from folks at Victory, In-Bev, etc, are worth it.

Short answer; no, can's are not necessarily "better" at preserving IPAs. How much oxygen is in the beer at sealing is a major factor and when you do not have a top of the line canning line, it is often quite a bit more with cans. Can liners also absorb a lot of hop goodness (myrcene, etc ... details in the thread). Cap liners do as well to be fair. With a high quality cap liner, Oxygen ingress with bottles can be VERY low ... though it's zero with bottles. Therefore a bottle with a good cap liner is often better than a can coming off of anything but the very best canning lines (think Sierra Nevada, Victory ... and In-Bev ;-).

According to everything in the thread above posted by very knowledgable peope, chances are very high that either you like that beer old, you got bad bottles (temp is a factor in how fast IPAs degrade and the closer to freezing their kept, the better), the recipe was changed, etc ... not that cans kept it fresher.

 

A vertical tasting refers to taking several years' worth of a brew and try them in all in a sitting. Order doesn't necessarily matter, but this way you can get a good snapshot of how well a beer ages. I've already done this with a few different brews to try and find a sweet spot for cellaring them.

As for the can vs. bottle debate, I have to go with Kurmaraja. No matter how good your package material is, the contents of it have to be good to begin with. Too much oxygen will really screw up the shelf life of the beer. There are some great innovations going on with smaller canning lines (15-100 per minute) that are quickly getting rid of the package oxygen issue, so that won't be much of a problem for smaller operations in the future. We started doing Boston Lager, our seasonals, and a couple of other brands in cans last year. Our fillers are pretty comparable to those used at BMC, and I will say that once we started running smoothly, it does a really good job at keeping beer fresh. Given all the same parameters, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the bottle and the can. Personally, I prefer bottles for home and cans for travelling.

 

Swami's IPA is one of my favorites, doesn't come in bottles, so can't compare. I am also right by the source so I do get it fresh. Bells Two Hearted, Ten Fidy, Old Chub, Hop Nosh are also favorites.

 

I'm so glad people love Hop Nosh. I have to admit, an IPA in a can does taste particularly fresh for some reason, but again, that may be because I live right next to Cigar City, and Jai Alai taught me the beauties of an IPA.

 

I kinda like cans as a matter of practicality, but I have to say my palate isn't quite refined enough to probably tell the difference.

 

Correction - I meant zero oxygen ingress with cans, not bottles, after sealing.

 

IPAs on cans are awesome. That hop smack just seems to hit harder. And Loose Cannon is awesome out of a can, as is Modus Hoperandi

 

I was just thinking about this. Canning something that should be consumed fresh-like and IPA, is a great idea; but when you are looking at something that should be cellared- a bottle is better

 

No.

Read above. If cans are done properly, with very little oxygen, then cans are superior for aging as well in that they have zero oxygen ingress. Now, if you want oxygen to slowly seep into your beer via caps on bottles over time ... by all means, age in bottles.

Of course, this assumes that the can was originally sealed with little oxygen inside, which is often not the case. However it sounds like advances in canning technology are making low oxygen canning at the lower end a reality.

 

I think you are kind of echoing my point. i.e. the ten fidy vertical guy saw very little difference between the three years. i.e. if you have an IPA of DIPA- if you can it properly and can't get to drinking it for awhile it holds it freshness better. But for beers that are ideal for aging or should be aged-like and imperial stout, barleywine, some sours and belgians, old ales, strong ales...etc...a bottle will be better for aging. I mean if you want to keep said brews in your cellar for a much longer period of time- sure cans are better- but typically bottled beers that are better aged for 1 yr would be aged exponentially more in a can to reach their peak.

 

I don't actually know if I'm echoing your point. You seem to be saying that aging is about prolonged oxidation and I'm not sure if that's the case. Is the whole reason we find it occasionally beneficial to age stouts or barleywines that we want them to oxidize? I don't know if there are other anaerobic processes, or mildly aerobic processes (where a can may be better), that can mellow or otherwise improve beer.

 

And name me a top notch barleywine, Belgian, or sour that's in a can which would allow us to test this hypothesis. The way to truly understand this would be to understand what is beneficial to aging these beers (e.g. Do they need some oxygen ... Or are they better with very little) and THEN decide if cans are better or not. I remain unconvinced that cans wouldn't be a better long term aging vehicle. I suspect a lot of this vertical stuff is simple chance, not a predictable aging process. (Particularly outside of "live" wild beers where bugs are doing their thing.)

 

For me it will always be bottles. It's just better tasting, for me. The best thing is when you take a cold one and pour it in the glass. Then the bottle condenses because of the room temperature. Beautiful.