I left a beer in the freezer a little too long tonight (hotter than hell here in Maine) It poured about 85% liquid 15% slush. I realize it’s still a 7% beer and Im drinking it as is, but it made me curious as to how it might change the beer as it obviously separated the water from the alcohol, and how, as the ice melts, it might change the makeup of the beer. Any thoughts or professional opinions? And yes, it’s Saturday night and I have nothing better to do right now than to ponder this.
Filter/skim out the slush and you've got an Eisbock style beer. https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/36/
Bingo! May as well take advantage of the opportunity. Just pour it carefully into another glass and leave the slush behind. Otherwise, all the freezing will have accomplished is maybe precipitating out some proteins and CO2, but once it all defrosts it's the same strength.
Here's what you do next time: freeze it totally, then open it and put the bottle in a glass upside down. The liquid that comes out first as it melts will be the 'eisbeer', while the icy remains will be left in the bottle. Enjoy what's in the glass when it's a little more than 50% defrosted that way.
I might have to try that intentionally. In twenty years of beer drinking I’ve frozen a few beers, and just let them thaw. Somehow I feel like I’m cheating myself by only drinking the alcohol....
Beer writer Lew Bryson covered the topic of frozen beer in his 2000 article How does a good beer go bad? Siebel Institute's explanation: In a "rebuttal"reply by AB brewmaster, George Reisch to a similar 2008 article which claimed "Freezing beer makes it taste better..." wrote: As for US "ice beer" brewers, they are legally allowed to remove only "... a de minimis amount (not more than 0.5 percent of the volume of beer used in producing such product)" but some brewers apparently ignore that prohibition and the TTB has usually just looked the other way.
Good ole “freeze distillation,” separating two substances by their freezing/melting point. Hard cider gets turned into applejack by this method. Some wines are freeze distilled to pump abv. And the above mentioned eisbock. As Bill Nye says, “Not bad!!”
