From store to cellar (initial temperature swings)

Mostly doesn't matter. I don't think anyone on here can taste the difference between a beer not exposed to temperature swings in the warehouse, truck, etc, and one that has.

Doing this over and over on a larger scale, like over a period of years for beers you are cellaring, may make a bigger difference, but it takes a bit for it to add up.

There's an interesting thread that was on here recently about someone doing a side-by-side between two of the same beers being cellared - with one of the beers being swirled on a weekly basis, and the other being stored untouched and upright. Worth checking out.

 

From what I have experienced and been told, the number value of a temperature swing is not nearly as important as ensuring that you don't exceed high or low thresholds. Taking a beer out of the fridge (say 38 degrees), letting it get to room temp (say 68 degrees), and then putting it back, is a swing of 30 degrees two times in a row, but that will have no negative (at least noticeable) effect on your beer. On the other hand, letting a beer sit for any decent period of time above, say, 70, or below 30ish will have a negative effect, even if it only went down 10 degrees from being in your fridge to a freezer, or from your cellar to a hot room.

 

You're definitely over thinking it. Too high or too low temperature are the only thing to worry about in those regards. Beer has been transported for hundreds of years and rarely has gone bad from it.

 

I have yet to see any difinitive evidence that temperature swings are as serious as people make them out to be.

I actually think that this is a hold-over from corked wine, where large temperature swings can affect the product in bad ways due to the expansion and shrinkage of the cork.

 

Even with wine, I see people obsessed with the temperature changes for relatively short periods of time but then I point to a flat bed truck in Napa with 4 pallets of Silver Oak driving down the road in summer.

 

As long as it isn't sitting in the sun for long periods of time its fine. That goes for cellaring as well.

 

It's just beer man. Buy it, store it, drink it. Beer can tolerate temperature swings from 33-80ish , keep it in the dark. Put it in a cool basement, or in a pinch, your guest room closet if you keep the a/c cool in the house. I keep our house at ~70 year round, and when I had a basement it went from 35-50. I assure you, any flavor fluctuation directly caused by temperature is not perceptible by any normal palette.

 

"Temperature swings" are more cellaring voodoo. The beer went through much larger, faster swings over the packaging/distribution cycle. Protect it from sunlight and you should be all good.

 

I think it is far more important for bottled beer to avoid being "light struck."

 

I was just wondering this same thing, thanks for posting.