Infected/skunked questions

If u get an oberon that has a crystal clear bottle of the bottle THEN there is something wrong with it. Every oberon that u will ever see from a bottle with have a layer of sediment. Same goes for the fff arctic panzer. just always look at it as sediment is NORMAL! Thats not to say the oberon wasn't off! Ive had a few bad run ins with bells two hearted lately! its extremely inconsistent! a nasty coppery finish! Its def not the brew i fell in love with!

 

A skunkd beer literally smells like a skunk and often has some of the flavor you'd expect something that smelled like that to taste. Skunking is caused by exposure to light and almost any beer with a noticeable amount of hops in it can be skunked. Skunking is not caused by temperature changes or by any thing other than light.

You can buy two bottles of a beer that comes in green bottles, be sure they are from a closed case. Take them home. Put one in the fridge and the other in direct sunlight for an hour or so and then put it in the fridge. After both are chilled enough to be at the same temperature and take them out and open then both. You'll know immediately which is the skunked bottle.

Sediment in the bottom of the bottle is usually the result of bottle conditioning where the brewer puts a bit of sugars and yeast in the bottle along with the beer before capping. The yeast eats the sugar and makes more alcohol and more carbon dioxide whichi is absorbed in the beer helping to carbonate it.

Wheat beers often have sediment as the yeast is meant to be swirled and poured into the beer to complete the flavor profile. For example pouring a hefeweizen you should pour most, swirl the last oz or so to get all the yeast into the liquid and then pour the rest. That gives the hefe a nice cloudy character and much of the nice flavors those beers have.

For some beers, if the bottle sits long enough the yeast cakes on the bottom of the bottle and doesn't go back in to supension easily, so I'm guessing your Oberon was a bit on the mature side

 

I did a review of Oberon last night and it also struck me as a little bit plain on the initial sips. My bottle also had the big chunk of sediment (which I had never seen in a bottle before) likely because mine was bottled back in February. I left the big chunk in the bottle as there already seemed to be enough sediment particles floating around. Maybe I'll go for the full yeast experience if I have Oberon again.

 

Adding the yeast is only common practice for Hefeweizens and other wheat beers, but you should feel free to experiment with any bottle-conditioned brew. Generally it works best in styles where the yeast flavor is a primary component - e.g., I love pouring myself the dregs of a nice Geuze, as it deepens the funkiness of that style.

For a DIPA like Arctic Panzer Wolf, you probably won't get much flavor from the yeast (the hops will dominate everything else), and neutral American Ale yeasts aren't all that interesting or tasty (imo) anyway. It's not the end of the world of you pour yourself some sediment, but it's not something to be encouraged like with an estery Hefeweizen.

If your Oberon just tasted like plain, boring beer, then it wasn't infected. Infection occurs when an unwanted organism gets into a beer and feeds off the residual sugars, creating flavorful byproducts that change the beer markedly from what it was supposed to be. Typically infections are from wild yeast (e.g., Brettanomyces) and/or bacteria (e.g. Lactobacillus and/or Pediococcus). An infected beer will often become sour and fruity, with flavors resembling yogurt, lemons, or cherries. Brettanomyces infections can bring weirder, funkier flavors, often described as barnyard, horseblanket, hay, grass, etc.

A common identifying feature of infections is massive overcarbonation, as the unwanted critters eat more sugar than the brewer expected regular Saccharomyces to consume and thereby produce more CO2 than planned. If you open a beer that isn't supposed to be sour or funky, and wind up with a gusher that tastes like stale cherry yogurt, then you probably have an infected beer.