Sometimes at the bottle shop I will see certain bottles with what appears to be some kind of growth on the exterior. (picture below) I have seen it on different brands from different distributors. I've seen it at different bottle shops. I think the only trend may be that they are always imports... though not 100% sure about that. I'm pretty sure the beer is fine, but I'm just wondering what this might be. Maybe some of the beer gets splashed during bottling, and little drops never get cleaned off, allowing the nutrients for microbes to establish little colonies? It definitely does not look like any kind of normal dust or packaging residue. Thoughts?
Sloppy coke-heads on the bottling line? I dunno, but you guess seems pretty reasonable. It looks "fuzzy" like a colony would.
My guess is that particular breweries bottling room also doubles as a porno film set...or it's just a little mold
Mostl likely just a portly run bottling line. New Holland has this problem. Their bottles are often sticky/ bottles stuck in holder/ have messed up labels/ blotchy bottle dates. It's really a buzz kill. Even their signature foil cap thing is crooked more often than not. They make some great brew.. but holy hell do they need some help on how to run things properly.
It's either mold or maybe it's one of those kits where you add water to the little bag of powder and it forms crystals. Beer crystals.
It's mold. And it's from the cooler not being able to keep up the moisture removal with the display doors constantly opening.
What is ion the outside of the bottle is not nearly as important as what is on the inside. I have had stuff shipped with white spots from foam shipping containers. I has also had white spots when a bottle broke in a case and covered the other bottles with beer which became moldy. If you are worried, send them to me, I will drink them and let you know if they are OK.
It is mold. Sometimes bottles arrive that way at the store, and if stocked quickly are not noticed. Bring it to someones attention at the store and they will most likely pull it from stock and send it back to the distributors. Likely the beer itself is fine, but what store wants mold bottles on the shelf?
