Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Can vs. Bottle

This didn't take long to start!

 

I'll be picking some up soon ... prices at my local.

Case of bottles was $34.99

Case of cans was $25.99

I'm guessing there is a difference in mouthfeel slightly, cans will stay fresh for longer / not get light struck either.

 

the can is much smoother like a tap version less bitter pine hops on the front end

 

They are indeed conditioning in the can but in both cases, I think the amount of CO2 from the bottle/can conditioning is small enough to not have much impact on mouthfeel (they package at close to full carbonation). They were doing a blind taste test at an event not too long ago and I seem to remember people being unable to tell the two apart...

 

I've done a side by side and the difference is negligible if not non-existant. I thought canned Torpedo was actually better than the bottle, felt a bit crisper.

 

I didn't notice any difference above the standard variation found in bottles of SNPA, of course I pour both into a glass. They are both conditioned in their container. There is a difference strait from the can vs bottle, but I normally don't drink that way

 

This must be why everything Surly and Oskar Blues does is so bad;-)

 

Try doing it in a blind tasting where you don't know which container it is poured from. Use 6 2-4 oz samples, 3 from can and 3 from bottle and see how you can do.

Oh and be sure they are roughly the same bottling/canning date.

 

Also did the same thing and didn't notice much difference. Same with torpedo as mentioned above.

 

One of the problems we've had while doing blind tasting, is getting a similar pour out of both bottle and can. When pouring from a bottle, it's easy to regulate how much foam collar you get. The can, on the other hand, is tough because of the lip on the edge of the can, the beer travels over and into the glass in a much more turbid way. We found that punching a carb hole in the back side of the can makes for better pouring that is more similar to the bottle.

The style of pour and how much CO2 in suspension really has an affect on the perceived mouthfeel of the beer. CO2 and body (residual sugars) are quantifiable figures which are the main contributors to mouthfeel. Both CO2 and body are exactly the same in bottles and cans.

Out of thousands of blind side-by-side tests there has been no statistical deviations in flavor. We'll see during more trials over the lifetime of bottle vs cans (the older the beer, we assume, the more noticeable the difference) but we'll have to see as the beer ages.

-B

 

You Sir, Kick ass I love seeing your posts on here kicking knowledge about SN beers. Cheers

 

The elephant in the room seems to be the influence of glass aging on the beer. Nobody wants to admit they have become accustom to the character that a few weeks of proper glass aging imparts on a beer.

This effect might even be amplified with SN offerings as the shorter, fatter bottles would tend to impart a unique glassiness with a different surface area glass-to-beer dynamic.

 

no offense, but if you really want to assert that there's some objective difference, you ought to do a blind taste test with beers packaged less than a month apart.

insofar as this is worth talking about at all, it's only worth talking about if you do it that way...

 

I have never heard of "glass aging" imparting anything on a beer. I'm interested in learning more about it, do you have anything on the subject handy?

 

I enjoyed the SNPA in cans just fine, and I am loving the cheaper price. Drinking my 2nd one today as I type this.
I needed it after trimming up my already done blooming for the spring Azalea's.

Going to be a long hot summer in Florida this year.

 

When milk came in glass containers, people loved it so much that they paid to have it delivered to their doorsteps.

 

Indeed

The colloidal properties of typical soda-lime glass as used in beverage containers leads us to believe it is an inert, non-reactive substance. However, further investigation reveals the biodynamic nature of its amorphous properties as manifested in biostatic activity amongst reagents such as Na2O and CaW10.

Single-celled eukaryotes such as yeast have their own biostatic reactivity and this activity increases in the presence of soda-lime glass additives.

A thorough lecture on this little-known phenomena can be viewed here.