IPA heat experiment

And that is indeed a fact!

I would be willing to bet that commercial breweries have more information (data) here but for business reasons they choose to not share that information.

I have read multiple folks post in this thread they have no reticence to ship beers (e.g., trades) during the hotter periods of the year (e.g., summertime). I am not personally a trader but I will state that would prefer to not accept beer as a trade during the hot times of the year. Maybe this is time to say: caveat emptor!?!

Cheers!

 

I would suggest that is a very good idea!

Cheers!

 

Soooo... IPAs are better stored cold than hot?.. hmmmmm.

 

Cool test, but it would take much more extensive testing to really get a good idea of how trading will affect beers. There are just too many variables to accurately isolate the effects of each individually, and get a good idea.

Just to list a few:
-The beer you are using will matter. Each recipe has a different chemistry and will act differently.
-The specific batch of the beer will matter. If the brewer can identically replicate the same beer each time, it wont matter, but if not it will.
-How was the beer packaged?
-How old was the beer when you started testing it? What other environmental and chemical influences has it already seen?
-Exactly what temperatures did it go through in your testing? How many temperature rises and falls did it go through? What was the max temperature it saw? What was the fastest cooling or heating that it saw? What was the longest continuous amount of time that the beer sat through a hot range of temperatures before cooling back down?
-What temperature are you serving the beer at? How did you get both beers to that temperature? Would drinking both of them at a different temperature cause different results?
-What is your criteria for judging the beers when comparing them? Is it purely based on amount of enjoyment, or other more objective factors? Does everyone in your group have the same criteria?

Not trying to discourage experiments like this, just pointing out that its hard to make any real conclusions that you could apply to other scenarios.

 

Yes. Thanks for that.
But all things considered, this is a pretty cool thing to try to illustrate on a small, crude scale and then tell to other people that might be interested in the process.
You should look into quality control.

 

Thanks for posting!

I've been told numerous times that the fridge preserves beer "life" but never seen a concrete formula.

 

As long as the mountains stay blue I don't see a problem...

 

Excellent suggestion. Who could fail to understand something that simple and easy to see?

Even the typical distributor warehouse janitor who doesn't know much about beer should be able to understand a concept as simple as that one. No PhD needed. No formulas involved. Just a quick, simple look can tell him whether the beer is as cold as it should be. Nor could the typical distributor fail to understand what such a simple visual cue means for the beer in their warehouse. No store clerk needs training in why and no store owner could accidentally ignore that thinking it doesn't really matter much. Plus a customer doesn't need a technical education to figure out that the retailer isn't caring for their stock properly and so not to buy beer there. Don't see much that is blue, shop somewhere else.

 

It was meant as a joke, but you bring up some great points regarding possible causes of lifeless beer. Unfortunately there are not a lot of self distributing small breweries with thr means to buy a temp controlled box truck. It's a catch 22 for those guys. Either don't distribute because they can't keep the beer cold, or damage their product by distributing it.

 

Actually I thought it was a joke at one time myself and so realized that you were making it up front.

But it wasn't long ago that I realized it may well have been a very clever move for alerting people to the fact they weren't properly caring for the beer. While there's not much to do about those who store it warm deliberately, I suspect a large part of the problem is simply not enough folks give it enough weight or recognize that it's a cumulative problem given how many people handle most beer between brewer and customer.

I've lost track of the number of times I've had a retailer tell me temperature doesn't really matter or a few days won't hurt it, but without giving much thought to how the beer may have been treated before s/he got it.

It actually would be nice to have a little indicator on the label that lets me quickly look at the age, as influnced by time, temperature, etc. without having to read and decypher some container dating systems.

At least the self distributing small brewer can be sure of how it is handled in their custody and get a sense of whether or not a retailer is going along with temp control just by taking a quick look around while helping to unload the truck, etc.

 

I am in that same boat. Either the retailers are ignorant here or are simply being less than honest in their zeal to sell their beers.

Even on BA there are plenty of folks who post that even though a beer is many months old that because it comes from Brewery X the beer is just fine. The 'wild card' here is how was the beer handled/stored over those many months? If it was continually stored cold than yes a 3-4 month old beer could drink fine. As consumers how do we know how the beers we purchase were continually stored? This is where the drink local movement has advantages. Earlier this week I purchased a four-pack of Sly Fox Hop Project #3 which was canned on 7/5/17 and I am confident this beer was maintained at cold temperatures over those 10 days.

Cheers!

 

I'd simply add that I don't think the problem is unique to SE PA. Also, in many places I've consulted for, when you've a choice between lack of knowledge or bad intent, lack of knowledge is the better explanation in a majority of the cases.

 

Did you know which was which or was it a blind test? I think that would be a huge factor.

 

Good conversation here. Thanks.

On a similar note, I did a pseudoscientific experiment with sunlight. Had several samples, from one bottle, separated by one minute intervals, and the very first sample was skunked. I repeated the experiment with three different brands, and found the same results. It was dramatic, and while the result seemed obvious, I regularly see people drinking quality beer exposed to direct sunlight.

 

My IPA rocks when out in the sun for around 30 min, it takes on a great dank essence, really amazing. Not all IPA but some of them just bloom into a treat. Sorry this does not go with thread but it is an effect of heat/temps on otherwise cold beer.