The Unfortunate Trend of Exploding Cans in Craft Beer

It seems to me that if the breweries properly eliminated yeast from the canned beer that refermentation would be a non-issue. They could do this either via tight filtering or proper use of a centrifuge.

Maybe some industry folks can provide more insight here?

Cheers!

@SierraTerence @Sixpoint @honkey @ShaneP @JeremyDanner

 

I'll chime in: it's simple math. If you're adding sugar or have residual sugars AND you have residual yeast you'll have a problem down the road. That can take the form of exploding cans/bottles, or it can take the form of off-flavors ~ either way it's not good. Personally I'd go for the centrifuge rather than plate and frame, but that's just me, and most small breweries cannot afford a centrifuge. The elephant in the room is that most brewers want that yeast in there.

 

Gee, if only Louis Pasteur didn't die in 1895, taking the secret of his process with him.

EDIT- Oh, wait...

 

Just as a time reference, I saw bottles of California Cooler explode on occasion. People like their fruit and sugar "grenades". I hope no one gets hurt, but it is funny!

 

Jim, can you please provide more details here? Why do the brewers want the yeast in their packaged products?

I know that Anchor Brewing flash pasteurizes their beers. Do you know of any other craft breweries that have the ability to pasteurize their beers?

Cheers!

 

Maybe this is changing now?

Below is an extract from an article by your buddy Lew Bryson:

“Still, small brewers didn’t have any other real options; centrifuge technology was too big, and too expensive. That’s changed. Look at the ProBrewer online forum about beer clarification as recently as five years ago and everyone’s talking about filters; by 2014 it’s all centrifuges. John Berardino, the brewery sales manager U.S. for Swedish centrifuge manufacturer Alfa Laval, notes how quickly things changed.”

http://allaboutbeer.com/article/centrifuge/

Cheers!

 

Interesting article, there could be some changes to the laws and regulations regarding how canned beer is manufactured coming soon. Cans may need to be thicker depending on the beer inside.

I dropped a warm 16-oz can of Patchwork Kilt by Down the Road Beer Co. onto a concrete step about two weeks ago; it flew right up the front of me, bounced off the ceiling then spun to the end of my porch.

I was soaked and it took me about 45 min. to clean up the mess. That was the 1st Scottish Ale I have reviewed, very enjoyable-I gave it a 4.04 but it was very sticky to clean of the walls, ceiling and floors.

At least I had 3 left.

 

I don't know why brewers want residual yeast in their beer if they're not doing a bottle-conditioned beer. It's a trend...? I want my beers clear except for the NE IPA where the yeast is part of the style. Maybe someone else will chime in.

As for pasteurization, yes, that's a big investment, actually HUGE, but some contract brews are done pasteurized (Flying Fish Farmhouse Summer Ale was pasteurized coming out of the Lion in Wilkes Barre, PA). And having said that, I believe in pasteurization, but I also believe in unfiltered beers, it all has to do with the beer itself and how far it's traveling and how much is sold.

 

Haha, I worked with John at Flying Fish. Good guy, someone you can trust... of course with Alfa Laval there's not a lot to worry about as you're buying the best.

 

Both @JeremyDanner and I commented on the original Twitter thread that is referenced in this story. I agree with the industry people who have said that it is not responsible to package these beers if a brewery knows there is a risk or it is a foregone conclusion they are going to explode at some point.

Many of these beers are just a shandy-inspired approach gone wild in terms of adding a lot of fruit to a base beer. That said there are ways to package a fruit forward beer if a brewery wanted to go through the process to create a shelf stable beer. Think about it there are lots of those on the market. Filtering/Centrifuge is not really an answer for a lot of these beers being referenced in this story as many of these are made by the brewery mixing the fruit juice to the finished beer at the end right before packaging. Possible things a brewery could do:
1) Consider different ingredients - use a fruit extract with all the flavor but no sugar instead of fresh fruit that has all that sugar. We have made beers with extracts. They work perfectly.
2) Do something to stop the secondary fermentation problem. The likely answer would involve pasteurization. Many of the large industrial brewers or breweries that export overseas do flash pasturing but it is not a common thing for a small brewery to do. We do not pasteurize any of our beers and we don't really want to make anything that requires it.

Or just don't package the beer. Make it a taproom only beer that people come to enjoy. At some point a can will explode and someone will be injured and then someone will be sued. It is only a matter of time. If a brewery packages something they know has any probability of exploding and actually tells people this publicly as a part of selling the beer then they are the one that is going to be held responsible. Ask a cigarette company if warnings on a package keep you from being sued and losing. They don't.

Also, as an example of our own choice in this area. In the summer we do a hand-mixed shandy at our taproom using blood orange pelligrino + either a lager or IPA as the base beer. People love it. People ask us all the time why we don't can it. And the simple reason is we can't can it as it is currently made as it would not be stable. Instead we do tell them they can buy their own blood orange pelligrino and our base lager or IPA and we even tell them the ratio to mix it the way we do at home. Or they can play with the mix and do whatever they like.

 

THIS is a problem. I personally know of several people who are brewery owners who seem to be not aware despite the fact that they've been told by their brewers that this is an issue/etc. and yet they continue forward. Sometimes the brewer is looked at as an underling, someone who's role is just to make the beer. I've had to bottle inappropriate beers in the past! I was forced to! Despite my argument that it wasn't possible and that using extracts was the only way to do it I was forced to bottle fruit beers that - fortunately - exploded before they even left the distributor. Where will this basic lack of knowledge or ignorance of the issue lead I don't know, but it goes for everything concerning beer, down to the smallest detail, and I hope that some breweries open their eyes before things go wrong.

 

Shane, can't the beers be filtered/centrifuged prior to mixing with the fruit? For example, filter/centrifuge the beer and mix that finished beer with fruit juice in a tank (e.g., a brite tank) and then package?

Cheers!

 

I have two opinions related this, one of which will probably be controversial among certain consumers.

The first shouldn't be controversial at all: the onus is very obviously on the brewery/packager to ensure that the cans don't explode. We all know that beer is perishable in a sense, but it is not well-known that it will turn into a bomb in a matter of days, nor should that ever be the norm; the comparison to leaving milk in a hot car is laughable and is apples to oranges. This is basic QC, and it's not like there aren't ways to prevent this such as pasteurization (as pointed out by @jesskidden) or other ways that have also been suggested. Pasteurization would probably be preferred because there is no reason to age the types of beers that are affected by this phenomenon, therefore killing the yeast through pasteurization would stabilize the beer without the perceived negative consequences of filtration or centrifuge (which would remove particulate and the "haziness" that these brewers want). Also, as @ShaneP pointed out, simply putting disclaimers/warnings on the cans does nothing for liability

My second point is probably a little "get off my lawn," but I don't really think that tossing fruit in post-fermentation is really beer anymore, it's a beer cocktail, similar to a shandy (and yes, I feel the same about adding brewed liquid coffee and other additives post-fermentation as well, and no I don't think this makes the product automatically bad, see my review of Goose Island BCBCS for confirmation). Fermenting the fruit in the beer (or adding the additives during fermentation via a process similar to dry-hopping) is totally different and is still beer in my eyes (like the case of lambics and other such beers). Literally mixing fruit purée into an otherwise finished beer is just making a beer smoothie, and great if you enjoy that, great that it's allowed on the site (it's a beer product after all), but let's not call it beer, shall we?

 

New Glarus and Goose Island also pasteurize their beers. I don't know if New Glarus is flash pasteurization or some other method of pasteurization, but it's known that they do pasteurize all of their beers. GI is definitely flash pasteurization, though I don't know if they do it to any beers that aren't Bourbon County (which they started doing after the infection debacle of 2015).

 

Maybe, but it all depends on the process they want to follow in making the beers. As I said many of these beers being referenced are ones where the fruit is blended into the beer at the end. A big reason this is being done at the end is that they want a lot of the mouth feel of the fruit juice as well as the flavor. This is one reason I called it a shandy-inspired beer gone wild. These are more like fruit-beer cocktails. Blending and filtering could help some but there will likely still be residual sugars if they use real fruit juice. Again, why I mentioned extracts that have zero sugar as an option. Those however will not bring that pulp/fruit mouthfeel.

 

Thanks for that tip. I was able to find:

“New Glarus purchased their pasteurizer used from the Frankenmuth Brewery. "All our lagers are flash-pasteurized," Dan says, "and the rest is bottle conditioned."

https://newglarusbrewing.com/brewery/headline/NewsID/31

I also found:

“Q: What is the sediment in my bottle of Spotted Cow?

A:Spotted Cow is one of our unfiltered brews, which simply means that the brewer's yeast is still in it. Brewer's yeast is full of wonderful vitamins and minerals, and adds the final layer of character that is intended for this brew. It is full of Vitamin B and potassium, and also contributes to a smooth mouth feel and great bready notes! The brewer's yeast will sometimes settle at the bottom of bottles that have stood upright and stationary for a time while waiting to get to you (either during transportation or while waiting for you at your local establishment), and it is always a good idea to reincorporate the brewer's yeast for the vitamins and flavor layers that it adds. To do so, carefully set the bottle on it's side on a flat surface and gently roll the bottle back and forth with the palm of your hand. This should reincorporate all those wonderful flavors!”

https://newglarusbrewing.com/beers/faq

And one more thing:

“Most of New Glarus beers are pasteurized before bottling, exceptions being R&D beers, wheat beers and some others. I know the 4 fruited 750's are pasteurized.”

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/aging-new-glarus-fruit-beers.298570/

So, sorta a mixed bag but according to @SportsandJorts the fruited beers are pasteurized.

Cheers!

 

And that is OK as long as there is no yeast in the packaged (canned) product. Residual sugar and no yeast = no refermentation.

Filtering beer and then mixing with fruit juice seems like a viable method to produce canned beer without the concern of can bombs.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the info, I knew it was out there somewhere!

I don't know what information/authority @SportsandJorts has, but I'm pretty sure literally all of their beers are pasteurized, except the R&D beers. I don't think there are any other exceptions anymore, but I could be wrong (paging @Vitacca, @chazmcbro, and @sherm1016 for more accurate information, since you guys usually know the NG stuff inside and out). I didn't mention the R&D's simply because they're pretty niche cases that many people probably aren't even aware of, but it's factual to say that they are the exception for New Glarus (unless the three guys I paged can bring some info to light, in which case of course I'd stand corrected).

Either way, NG is indeed a brewery that pasteurizes (though I really wish they wouldn't with most of their beers).

 

Couple of things, most filters and most (all?) centrifuges don’t remove yeast sufficiently to package back-sweetened product. Also issues with things like coffee beans that are teeming with lacto.

The brewer can A: buy an expensive flash pasteurizer.

Or B: don’t package these beers, or at least limit them to draft-only, as most kegs spend most of their time cold, minimizing risk of refermentation.

I think the problem is that enough people want to drink these beers from cans. Draft/on-site consumption hurts their popularity. Resale and trading might have something to do with that...

So brewers will continue to package these beers. If someone legitimately believe that beer packaged in this manner doesn’t present a problem, I’m sorry, but they are an idiot. It’s HOMEbrewing 101.

From there stems the philosophical argument of who’s responsibility this is. Most of these beers have something along the lines of ‘contains fruit sugar, keep cold!’ So at least their is an attempt to warn customers. I honestly don’t know the legality of this, but I’ve definitely seen things like kombucha packaged in thin glass bottles.

Personally, I would never dream of packaging beer in such an unstable condition. First, if refermentation occurs, that sweet, rich fruit beer will become thin, dry and fizzy. You’ve ruined your reputation with that customer. More importantly, you can seriously injure someone with exploding cans or bottles. I couldn’t live with myself.