I accidentally left a six pack cans of Jai Alai in my freezer for 6 hours. I thought it was ruined. Once I brought it down to about 55%, I had a can and I surprised that it tasted perfectly. After three cans in a 1 1/2 hour time frame, I had my usual buzz from this beer. I also want to say that I think the ABV of Jai Alai is much higher than 7.5%. It's more like 9.0% Don't know why. But it is definitely stronger. My question is this: Which beers lose all their strength and taste after they freeze? Or is this not the case at all?
As long as the liquid remains contained it shouldn’t lose any potency. There’s actually such a thing as freeze distilling and can actually make a low alcohol beverage stronger over time by freezing and removing the unfrozen alcohol. However, if nothing leaves the container all the alcohol should still be in tact.
Lew Bryson discussed the topic of frozen beer (with emphasis in bold by me): “Next up on my torture calendar were two frozen Franklinfests. Everyone’s done this once or twice, stuck a beer in the freezer to chill it fast and forgotten it, left beer in a garage in the winter. I let the beer freeze up until there were solid beersicles inside the bottles, then let it slowly thaw in the fridge. It tastes a lot like the baseline beer: malty, smooth, just a touch of hops. The finish seems a bit longer, and the carbonation somewhat spikey. The mouthfeel is perhaps a touch creamy, fuller. If I had not known this beer had been mistreated, I might not have guessed it. This was a quite subtle effect, and not all unpleasant. This is actually how American breweries make ice beer. They freeze it, then thaw it, without removing any ice. (Canadian brewers skim some ice, raising the alcohol levels, but this practice is considered distilling in the US and requires a distiller’s license.) What’s the point, and what’s going on here? Siebel to the rescue again. "Freezing puts a denaturing pressure on the proteins in the beer. As they denature they come out of solution and create a haze, or even flakes, in the beer," Radzanowski told me. Denaturing means the proteins’ structures are being ripped apart. "Repeated cycles of freezing and thawing have a greater effect." Haze and flakes sounded like some really old beers I’ve seen, and I said so. "That’s right," he said, "It accelerates the aging process. In fact, we use freeze/thaw cycles as a tool to predict a beer’s shelf-life." One cycle will start to bring those proteins out of solution and change the texture and mouthfeel of the beer. That’s why ice beers taste somewhat smoother, and where eisbocks get their remarkable silkiness. Repeated cycles are not as beneficial.” http://www.houblon.net/spip.php?article681 It appears that if the beer is only frozen once (i.e., one cycle) the effects are not too bad. Cheers!
Usually frozen beer tastes different to me is the carbonation becomes less. Freezing a beer in the can and then thawing has no effect on the strength. Jai Alai is definitely not 9%
OP, if there was any water from the beer that was still frozen when you drank the beer and you left it behind in the can, then you partially distilled the beer and the abv would be higher.
The thing is, whether I froze Jai Alai or not... It drinks like a 9% beer. I've been drinking it for over five years.
Years ago I had brewed an Irish red and a porter, both were in kegs in my kegerator. Halfway through the kegs I noticed that I could only drink a couple of beers before i passed out. Then both kegs went dry. When I took them from the kegerator I realized they were both frozen solid, so what i had been drinking was essentially distilled beer. The water part of the beer froze, what I was getting was very, very strong beer. But it tasted very good, it wasn't like drinking pure alcohol, it was just "enhanced" porter and Irish red. The temperature controller had malfunctioned and the kegerator(a modified chest freezer) had frozen the kegs.
This winter I'm going to brew a strong bock and put the kegs outside to freeze. I think 5 gallons of 20% ABV should last a while.
Ah, the good old accidental home eisbock’ing, or is it eisipale’ing. I accidentally did this with a gem of a cellar box during a move once. Several of the bottles caps popped/glass broke so those were lost. I still have the others, only drank one so far, a many years old vintage of Marshal Zhukov. I was shocked that it was essentially fully intact without any ill effects. MZ is a unique beer though, with its motor oil viscosity and low baseline carbonation. I will open the others sometime, expectations are low.
