Sure, I ate lunch at a place on Friday, and know their tap lines are sketch, so I had a few bottled Old Styles. The food is good, so I have a plan before stopping in. You're also playing Russian Roulette at many places serving you well past shelf life packaged beers. Bottom line, if you encounter issues and they have no interest in rectifying, don't give them your business. Stay with tried and true, branch out based on trusted recommendations. What if I were Romeo in black jeans What if I was Heathcliff, it's no myth Sofie is just looking for Someone to dance with
When I first went to Belgium in the 1990s, there were generally only one or two draft beers in most cafes – Jupiler, Stella, Maes etc depending on which brewer the cafe got its beer from. All the specialty beers were bottled. This is the historical background Sofie Vanrafelghem is coming from. To me Duvel is a bottled beer. I have seen abbey beers poured on draft and then the bartender scrapes the foam off with a bar blade. That's just barbaric.
For the past century and half or so, many brewers have used pasteurizers similar to those from Barry Wehmiller.
Draught vs Bottled? Who's the Grand Champeen? It's a mouthfeel thing to me. Tastes seem to be almost identical btwx the two but in some cases one or the other will have a bit more luster. It varies. Ya never know until ya find out.
I did state that I wasn't up on current craft practices. Here's a pretty good capsule of the processes that aligns with my understanding. https://www.smartmachine.com/why-use-a-tunnel-pasteurizer-for-beer/ I'm pretty sure that tunnel pasteurization is still used for the overwhelming majority of bottled/canned beer from regional and national brewers. My several tours of regional breweries in the 70s confirmed the tunnel pasteurization. In Oregon until the mid '80s, bottled and canned beer was required to be pasteurized. Coors did not pasteurize, and didn't arrive there until 1985. Lucky introduced a draft-in-cans beer in about 1970. Lucky Draft was sold in CA and WA, but Oregon got pasteurized "Lucky Light" with special labeling similar to the canned draft. By the way, we did a taste test of several AALs in the early 70s in CA. Coors and Lucky Draft were two of the beers. In the blind test we couldn't tell the difference between them. Lucky Draft was probably designed to be a Coors clone, but it didn't make much of a dent in sales. The first craft beer in Oregon, Cartwright Portland Beer, started up in the early 80s. They bottled their beer and needed to jury-rig a system to tunnel pasteurize the bottles. Just another big headache for that startup.
I appreciate the information, gents! Very cool stuff. I must admit that I simply hadn't looked into alternative methods.
The more variables introduced to the beer, and what its original source sent by how many it takes to get it up and into your your mouth. Such as date. Temperature. Length, and journey of the lines to the tap. Cleanliness of EVERYTHING in that trek. There will be.
I recently had Bitburger on tap. From a can it’s smooth with a little hop bite. From tap, at Endless Brews, it had a huge bitter hop bite, among the best beers I’ve ever had on tap. Tap vs. Bottle/Can for me, it depends.
Nothing pisses me off more than when I go to a restaurant and their entire beer selection is bottles only. Bottles only? What am I at home? Get a damn keg set up. Baaaaaaahhhh!
LOL! Imagine how wine drinkers feel. And then expect to pay anywhere between 2 and a half to 4 times over MSRP for the privilege of drinking stuff you can likely find at the local wine store. That being said, if I'm going some place where I plan to drink beer, I only go to places that I know will have a decent tap selection. Yes, food quality is important, but you have to draw a line somewhere.
Unfortunately there are many places in and around Providence that don’t have draft lines. It blows my mind. As a result, my wife and I tend to get a drink at a place we know has good beer before we head to dinner.
I feel like I encounter places with old bottles/cans more often than I run into places with poor draft lines. I don't really run into either all that often in the Denver area, but every time I visit my family in the southeast...yikes. Pretty sure they think beer is infinitely shelf stable down there.
I've worked in several restaurants that didn't have draft lines, mainly because they were more wine or cocktail oriented. If the bar manager (or head mixologist or sommelier or whoever decides what's going to be sold) is worth their salt, the bottles/cans will be relatively fresh; slow sellers are taking up valuable real estate. If something isn't selling, they're going to replace it once the stock has gotten to the level of acceptable loss. Then it becomes mandatory shift drink for a bit, if the chef can't use it in a special (see cooking with beer thread). Beer-centric places are more likely to hold onto old stock. Helps make the list look more plump.
That's an interesting take on fresh inventory. Coming from you with your food background, I give your statement a lot of credibility.
I 100% agree that beer-centric places are apt to hang on to stuff for too long. It makes the list look fancier and (outside of IPAs) they're more apt to bluff that age will "make it even better." I think that's one of the thing that separates a truly good beer bar/restaurant from one that just has a big ass selection.
Better? No. Preference? Yes. When I go out to have a beer (don't drink with meals in general), I go to a brewery (rarely a craft beer bar). Unless, it's a special release only available by bottle or can, I'm drinking draft. Right or wrong, I have always felt draft was close to the source and fresher.
