Bottle variation, is it real?

If all the bottles come from the same four or six pack the variation should be within you from day to day. E.g., what you ate earlier can influence how the beer tastes, etc.

Consistency from batch to batch is a challenge for all breweries and some meet the challenge better than others.

 

@JFresh21
A couple of things that might influence your palate...1 (pretty easy) and 2 (not so easy):
1 - Batch differences - If the brewery is not blending the finished product and the bottles you have came some different Bright Tanks, that would be the most obvious reason as to the varitation.
2 - Stratification - IF real coconut was used in the treatment process AND that treatment happened in the Bright Tank (i.e. no additional transfers of the beer made before bottling) AND the tank was not equipped with an agitator to help with homogenization AND the beer was packaged days after the treatment...it is quite possible that not every bottle will taste the same.

...my 2cents.

 

Couldn't have responded any better if I tried, you nailed it... end of thread?

 

As a professional who's run a packaging line for over a decade I'll say that there can easily be a difference from the start of a batch to the end of a batch. It can sometimes be difficult to get flavorings to mix completely and not stratify, especially in cold beer. This might be particularly true for coconut where the oils float on the surface although I don't have that much experience with coconut myself. It can also happen when ingredients are dry hopped in muslin or nylon bags and they start draining/dripping once the liquid level has dropped beneath them. The way to avoid all of this is to transfer to a fresh tank prior to packaging but that rarely happens as no one has the extra space available.

Something else to keep in mind is oxygen pick up which can change the flavor without actually displaying "oxygenated" characteristics. This can happen anytime the bottling or canning line shuts down for any reason, or even when it's just slowed. It's impossible at that point for most operators to tell what's had "good air" or "bad air", and a lot of times under pressure to get more product out everything just gets put through.

 

If they all came from the same batch, then the following might apply.

If they didn't, then it could certainly be batch to batch variation.

Other than blending and attempting to make slight changes in your recipe year to year to try to compensate for changes in hops and grains, as they are agricultural products and naturally vary, no.

 

Beers with flavorings (e.g. coconut, fruits, spices, pumpkin, etc.) have more variability if they use natural/unprocessed ingredients instead of processed or extract flavorings. Also remember that commercial brewing equipment is carefully designed to handle beer malt, hops, water, and yeast; and when other things are added to the system the filters, piping, mixing, sensors, cleaning processes, etc. may not operate as well, which could also lead to product variation.


EDIT: That said, I think people tend to imagine more bottle/batch inconsistency than there really is, especially with larger breweries who have invested in good QA/QC equipment. There are a lot of factors that can interfere with or bias our perception of taste, but when we think something is off, our instinct is usually not to consider what might be off, wrong, or biased about us.

 

Jim, would you expect that all of the beers in a 6-pack should taste consistently?

Cheers!

 

As noted in the excellent responses above, there is one additional factor that could come into play.

Assuming the bottles are from the same six pack (or 12), there is little reason to think that the beer has any real variation. However, drinking some flavored (and hoppy) beers can result in palate fatigue...whereas a prominent flavor can drop as session duration increases.

Day to day sensory variations can occur as well depending on time of day (your palate is most sensitive before Noon), and what you may have consumed prior to drinking the beer may factor in as well.

 

Yes, and no. Theoretically, yes, because they should be close in the same run. No, because that's not always the case. In smaller breweries lots of things can happen and I wouldn't find it odd at all to have some beer from different parts of a run added together.

 

Interesting, but hard to visualize how that would be happening at the 6 pack level.

Is it possible to take the explanation a bit further for us non brewers?

 

Sure... the labeler runs out of labels and rather than stop the line you just pull bottles off and set them to the side until later, OR the labeler breaks down and you do the same. Or the rinser goes out and they have to be set aside before labeling. Someone putting cans or bottles into cases misses some - it happens, and they need to be filled at the end of the run. Cases that didn't get quite filled at the end of the run end up having questionable "airs" added from the beginning of the run to make up complete cases. There's a spot on the collection table following filling where the bottles/cans don't really move forward but kind of circle around in one spot for a while. Just like the labeler issue, cases aren't ready to be filled and full cans/bottles just get pushed aside until they can be dealt with later. The bottling/canning run is stopped so that some emergency kegs can be filled. There are all kinds of reasons it could happen. Do I think it happens that often? Well I've been there and I expect it probably happens even more than I'd imagine, especially with smaller production breweries trying to push their limitations.

 

Thanks!

I've only toured some of the larger breweries when they had lines running and so never enountered most of what you are describing. But I can visualize now how it could happen.

 

Funny story - I just thought I'd share since it fits in. I was doing a hard hat tour of The Lion in Wilkes Barre (hard hat, safety goggles, ear plugs required) and when we came around the bottling line and stopped before going on to the pasteurizer someone asked why we needed the hard hats and as if on cue, due to the pressure of all the bottles pushing on it from behind, one was lobbed right over our heads and smashed about 7 feet behind us. "That's why."

 

Sure brewery Fantome is a good example.

 

Not sure if this is what you're referring to, but the "sick" beers that people get from Fantome probably happen to all the bottles.

 

Or was that an irate worker!?!

With a bad aim?

Cheers!

 

I've been drinking through my stock of 2017 KBS, no more than one every few weeks, and I have yet to have two in a row that taste the same. Most of them were bought together and likely came from the same case, and the others were 4-packs bought at the same time but different stores. Some seem to be bourbon only, others are strong on chocolate, and none of them have much coffee left. The variation probably is me since they should be more consistent.