"Keep Cold"

Beer is rarely stored cold at the distributor, nor when they ship it to retail stores. Then when it gets to the store, it is often stored on the shelves. I think the whole cold storage thing is a bit overblown except in the case of super fresh IPA's and direct brewery purchases (i.e. growlers).

 

Agreed. I'm constantly moving beers from the cellar into the fridge, on almost a daily basis. Hoppy beers never see room temp, and after that I prioritize by ABV. My theory is that the higher the ABV (not including hoppy high ABV beers like triple IPAs), the more "inert" the beer is overall, and thus the more resistant to temperature. But after a couple years in the cellar I tend to move even my higher ABV beers into the fridge (in fact right now I'm drinking a 2013 MOAS I moved from the cellar to the fridge last night).

 

Glad I'm not the only one. Last time I told someone I kept my KBS and BCBS cold in the fridge, they looked at me like I was nuts. On hindsight, they probably assumed I drank them that way too.

 

Most all beer should be refrigerated at all times once it's been packaged. i.e. kept in an environment between 35ºf and 45ºf. Especially beers that skew heavily towards the hoppier side of the equation. As you go above 50ºf in your storage. The beer conditions much quicker, and the hop characteristics you might enjoy out of beer that is well under a month old are going to fade dramatically. This goes completely against everything breweries were doing with their beer in the 19th century, even while using the same amount of hops per barrel they did, because it's what we've grown accustomed to and found to be the way we enjoy beer these days. But similar to hops cousin, marijuana, whose relative THC level (among other things) have sky rocketed with more advanced cultivation methods. Hops are also proving to be a very very different thing than they were back then. As such, we've found a need to look at how they being used in brewing very differently. What we perceive as fresh today would probably be looked at as rough and undrinkable by someone back then. Who knows though!
Ideally. Store it at 35, and consume it between 46 and 56 and you'll be doing alright in your scene. Big beers such as barleywines, ris's and their barrel aged ilk are a lot more forgiving in this because they tend to not focus so heavily on volatile and delicate flavors and what you are drinking it for is related to how the OVERALL sum of ingredients are behaving with one another.

 

You got to love Assumptions!

 

I learned in a brewing class once that every 10*F increase in storage temp leads to 3x quicker staling. It was something like at 70* beer will last around 3 months, at 80* ~1month, at 90* ~ 10days. At 60* around 9 months, 50* ~2 years, <40* virtually forever.

My numbers may be off, because it was a while since I remember learning this, but the idea is definitely true. Beer stales faster at higher temperatures. So storing beer cold is definitely the way to go.

 

am i doing it wrong? someone tell me!!! those bottom drawers are filled with loons and fantomes because of those silly corks inside, gotta lay those bottles flat oh and the dark drawers keep even more light out Of course the bottles are in brown paper bags in the drawers. i keep all my beer cold all of the time. there are many beers i pull out and let sit on the counter for 15 to 30 minutes before i drink them to get to a "cellar" temp. wtf is that cider doing in there? i need to have a word with the missus

 

Going on your first point, I agree with this completely. I have a few BCBS, Dark Lords, etc stored at my dad's house in his wine cellar, always set 54-57 deg. Perfect.

 

From the looks of it, it's fermenting- give it another month or so, and then rack it to a smaller container .

 

Your memory is pretty close. Beer aging effects (oxidation processes) increase by a factor of 2-3 times for every increase of 10 °C. This is based upon the Arrhenius equation.

Below is a handy curve which quantifies this.

It really does benefit to store beers that your aren't cellaring cold (refrigerator temperatures).

Cheers!

 

The real issue is the time spent at high temperatures since it is heat that 'kills' beer. If beer experiences many cycles of temperature but never gets too hot during that cycling not much damage is done. If you have 1 cycle but the beer gets too hot during that single cycle damage is done.

Cheers!

 

There are two schools of thought about how those cork and cage bottles with beer in them should be stored.

Take a read through this:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/101/store/

 

i've read these arguments before.

the cork and cage are upright. the only ones i lay down are the loons and the tomes. the loons are all stored on their side at the brewery.

 

OK, so you make the call you see best.

BTW, the Cantillon beers are stored on their side in pictures taken at the brewery. But then if you look at the space available at the brewery to store bottles there there's literally no way to store that many bottles of beer prior to labeling/shipping without putting them on their side.

 

...Keep cold Ponyboy, Keep cold...
Oh, and just try the beer at different temperatures and stick to the one that brings out the most in it. Yes, this will vary from style to style, but also from beer to beer...there are some IPA I think taste great cols and then there are some I think taste great warm( room temperature)

 

i've had success with the side storage. my issue with the loons and the tomes is that those caps are known to have crappy seals. if you store those standard corks without liquid contact they will shrink over time. I hear occasionally about loons with the cap on and the cork in leaking. that's says pour cork "health" and shitty capping to me. so, i'm doing side storage for science basically, trying to preserve the cork.

it's not an issue to store upright with the champagne corks because even with shrinkage, the mushroom shape keeps the seal. that's what i've read, and since it was on the internet it must be true

 

I keep my hoppy beers and lower ABV ales refrigerated. I like it when stores do the same but that is sadly not always the case.

 

I keep all beer at cellar temp. Now hoppy beers I keep in the fridge. This maybe a message to the stores, not just the end user. I see beer just sitting in beeramids all the time. Can't be good for it.

 

A Mom&Pop beer store a few blocks from me had people coming in demanding that they lower the temp in the store and remove the track lighting, this happened a couple of times right in front of me. They now are always wearing jackets because of the temperature in the store and the lighting is a bit softer than I remember it when its on...just a anecdote.