Storing Beer in Fridge

Generally you are safe leaving it in the fridge, and you are pretty needlessly worried about the whole deal. Before you get your beer it is likely to have gone through numerous temperature changes, often from warm/hot to cool/cold repeatedly, in its journey to your fridge. These changes do not harm the beer. Beer is amazingly resilient.

Can't comment on your Duchesse, and pardon me if I sound snarky to ask, it is really not my intent, but you do know Duchesse is supposed to be sour and funky?

There is no general rule for this, but the one that I recommend is to leave any beers with a hoppy character in the fridge.

 

As long as the hoppy beers stay cool, you have nothing to worry about. I usually keep big malted beer in the cellar.

 

If you want to preserve freshness, refrigeration is the way to go. In an ideal world, all beer would be shipped and stored refrigerated throughout the distribution system - brewery > wholesaler > retailer > consumer.

See Importance of Temperature in the Preservation of Freshness for some industry quotes. (You will no doubt get a lot of contrary "opinions" from beer drinkers on this subject - I prefer to believe professionals on such a topic).

Also, don't confuse storage temperature with the preferred serving temperature of beer. It is preferable to let beer warm up to the desired drinking temperature, rather than store it warm.

 

I think as long as you aren't planning on keeping the bottles for years then they should be fine in the pantry. Unless they are IPAs, keep those in the fridge as you should be drinking them quickly anyway. I keep all my beers in a depressed shelfing unit in the wall. Have had beer cellared there for over a year and they are drinking fine. When you want to keep them for several years or decades (if you have gueuzes) then you might want to start thinking about a temperature controlled environment.

 

My beer fridge is set to 50, and all my BCBS variants have been cool and dark since I got them, actually all of my "better beers' are stored this way as well. My hoppy stuff is always cold too, but it doesn't matter much they don't stick around long enough to matter. Stability of temp matters, I wouldn't sweat 60 degrees or so, as long as it's not unreasonably warm, and dark is better.

 

IPAs seem to do better in the fridge. Beers that are bottle conditioned (yeast in the bottle) will do well in 50-60 degrees, and actually need to be kept and served warmer than fridge temp. Personally I like to drink my beer at about 50-60 degrees. It's generally about personal preference, but some beers will mature better at Room 50-60 degrees than others.

If you aren't keeping them for long periods of time it probably will not be a major issue. up to 4 maybe 6 months should be fine in either the fridge or the pantry. Just my opinion. I usually try to drink my hop forward beers fairly young.

 

I agree with the points made by @cavedave , but since you said that half of the beer has been in the pantry for over a year, I think it's time to hold off on buying more beer and drink what you have.

 

What is the damage that a fridge can do on a stout, for example? I've had a KBS in my fridge for the past year. I've never cellared beer before. Will the fridge actually hurt these types of beers over time?

I've read a lot on how cellaring your beer can help it age well, but I can't seem to find out if a fridge is actually detrimental. Thanks!

 

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think keeping the beer in the fridge is going to harm it especially a stout. The colder it is the slower it "ages" to the best of my knowledge. Theoretically, it is aging at the appropriate pace between 50-60 degrees. The only time this is really going to matter is if you're storing something for 5 plus years.

If you have a stout or sour you want to age for a few years just throw it in the fridge. No damage is going to be done. I have a bar in my man cave and keep all my high alcohol beers in it at around 70 degrees. I'm opened a few several years later and they all tasted great. As long as there aren't huge temperature variations on a consistent basis and they're out of the light you should be good.

 

Blasphemy

 

Thanks! ^

 

I only drink dark beers and sours. I keep everything stored in a basement closet that stays between 60-65. I've never had any issues with it.

 

@Aisha First of all, listen to @jesskidden, his beer facts are always right on and supported by citations.

The only thing I would add is a caution that at those temperatures if bottles are stored near one of the fridge's cool air vents there's a chance they could freeze, which can ruin your beer by bursting bottles or compromising the cap seals. It wouldn't hurt the beer to raise the fridge temperature a little, and even then I would still be careful because the cool air vents can be significantly cooler than the rest the of the fridge and can be more pronounced if the fridge is tightly packed limiting internal air circulation. It's a little obvious, but many people forget.

 

Either is fine, I would just recommend making sure that any beer stored long term is stored upright to limit the amount of liquid that exposed to in-bottle air. A year in fridge is quite a bit of time so I would recommend sitting down and having a few, to give you more space for new beers.

 

Depending on what you had on the shelves, the worst damage to many of them has already happened. And if you look back to its history. It's been stored for conditioning in far, far worse conditions than a pantry which hits 75ºf.
Beer, in spite of what the freshness clan says, is pretty durable and some of them might really handle being stored at room temperature quite well even to the point of improving them.
All you're doing now in moving them to a cooler environment; essentially, is putting them in stasis and it would be worse now to take them back out.
And unless it's like below 4% abv, there's really no chance you'll freeze a beer stored at 31ºf.

 

Beer oxidation rates are directly proportionate to temperature rates. As temp increases, oxidation rates increase as well. So keeping beer in the fridge is going to slow down the staling process. In the case of hoppy beers this is advantageous and will maintain the hop freshness better than pantry or typical cellar temps. Keeping a stout at these temps will slow down the process as well, but some people enjoy the port and sherry qualities that come with the cellaring process. Either way, you're just keeping the beer from staling (good bad or indeifferent) by keeping them cool.

 

I still live at home so my "beer cellar" is currently the door of our back fridge. It's colder than I'd like but at least they're not being subjected to constant temperature changes.
I'm looking into getting a minifridge that I can keep around 50-55F for my "cellar" but right now whether I'm aging it or drinking it, it's all in the same fridge.

 

Now that's bad advice. When the zombie apocalypse happens, you're going to want to have as much beer stashed in your bunker as humanly possible!