Light or temperature

Well for one thing the light in the fridge goes off when you close the door, so.

 

I feel that temperature is a bigger factor with ipa's. not so much fluxuating temps but the mere fact that ipa's stay/last/hold hop character longer when kept chilled from the brewer, to the distro, to the store.

 

I guess light. Skunk beer sucks really bad. At worst you lose a little of the hop character with heat.

 

Beer is best stored cold unless you have beers intended for cellaring.

Higher temperatures accelerate beer staling due to oxidative processes. This is ‘defined’ via the Arrhenius equation. Storing beer cool/cold will increase the ‘best by’ timeframe for beer.

The principle manifestation of oxidation for hoppy beers (e.g., IPAs) is hop aroma fade over a period of time.

Some more information: 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.

 

I'll go with @Cameron_como.

The light goes off in the fridge when the door is closed. Plus, I love an ice cold IPA/IIPA.

 

Funny observation . . . However, my local shop keeps ipa's in a cooler with lights on most of the time

 

Good point...

question for the sciency folks out there: does light from a lightbulb = light from the sun in this context?

 

From what I've read light greatly effects the taste of beers, more so than temperature. I think temp is more important for non-pasteurized IPAs hence while they are kept cold directly from the brewer.

 

In this context, no they are not equal. The light that damages beer (specifically the hop compounds in beer) is ultraviolet light from the sun. Light bulbs do not give off the same type of UV light (at least not enough to damage the beer).

 

Here's the BA article on "Skunked Beer"
http://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/527/

Here's some quotes
"And it's been said that bottled beer can become light-struck in less than one minute in bright sun, after a few hours in diffuse daylight, and in a few days under normal fluorescent lighting. "

"How can I avoid skunked beers?
Simple. Don't buy beer on display, don't buy beer in a cooler that is brightly lit and don't leave your beer exposed to light.
"

 

@cherche

“Since about the 1960’s it’s been well established that the blue part of the visible light spectrum (~350-500nm) is the most efficient at generating lightstruck flavor, although ultraviolet light (below about 380nm) is capable of initiating this process as well. Brown glass bottles block light that is below about 500nm,…”

https://beersensoryscience.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/lightstruck/

So, as long as the beer is in brown glass (and even ‘better’ cans) the light can be mitigated/eliminated as a concern.

Most beer stores/bars use fluorescent lights in coolers. I noticed that one of my local beer bars removed the fluorescent bulbs from their bottle coolers. This may be not as ‘appealing’ from a retail/sales perspective but it is kinder to the bottle beers.

As has been mentioned, the lightbulb in a refrigerator is of little concern since it goes out when the door is shut.

Cheers!

 

Nice thread. Some nice points being made above. In my experience I've bought IPAs that have been sitting in a bottle shop out of a cooler, yet away from sunlight. With those, I haven't noticed a considerable drop off in freshness (with the exception of time since brewed, which no beer can escape). I've also had a skunked beer, and seen how quickly the sun can change the flavor. For me, personally, I choose sunlight as the question was which works faster.

 

According to this chart @68F (20c) it will take 14 weeks to display pronounced stale character. You shouldn't be sitting on IPA's that long anyways! So Light it is, as that can have a much faster rate as noted above.

 

But sunlight was not a choice:

“If you could choose only one, which do you think will alter an ipas freshness faster? Light in a cold place (fridge) or 70 degrees in a dark dark closet.”

Cheers!

 

How much light do you think the brown bottled/canned beers are exposed to from a refrigerator's lightbulb?

Cheers!

 

The spectrum responsible for skunking is roughly 250-500nm, which most flourescnet lights give off plenty of. Smart retailers either use specialized filter tubes that slip over the flourescent bulbs or they install something like safe spectrum lights.

 

Not much, however I believe that there is more than just the oxidation to worry about when it comes to hop flavor, aromas, bitterness, and their fade over time. That is why we drink IPA's fresh. It is not just the light or temperature, think about what is happening with the yeast (typically IPA's are unfiltered), and other volatiles residing in the beer. So while I state that the light is the more likely of the two factors that you asked about, it's my belief that you should be worrying about more than those two criteria.

 

We tried that, but it made it too difficult for customers to see things, so we replaced them and added these filter tubes that block 95%+ of the UV harmful UV spectrum, and we replaced all flourescent lights in the ceiling with LED track lights covered with UV blocking "museum filters."