IPAs not refrigerated??

I feel like fresh is fresh; room temp or cold. I heard Costco was keeping all their 'Enjoy By' at room temp, but if you drink it within a week or two/three I'm sure it would still taste good! I prefer all my IPA's to be stored cold and purchased cold, though.

 

Unfortunately, cold storage at the retail setting typically involves your beer to be only inches from damaging fluorescent light. I personally have never had a skunked brown bottled beer sitting on a shelf. I have had many skunked beers come out of a cooler. So I sometimes feel safer grabbing a fresh beer off of the shelf. I'm actually opening a bottle shop and will be using amber fluorescent light covers (protection to 500 nanometers) to protect my beers from light and have the benefits of refrigeration.

 

When I first seen IPAs stored warm, I was a bit worried, but it worked out just fine. Everytime I get Hopstoopid or Headhunter at my local beer stop, it's warm.

 

I can always get Two Hearted Ale that's under a month old, sometimes a lot younger, but it's always kept cold. Hop Drop has been a bitch to find lately, but I get it a day old if not same day depending on where I am. Right now because of the allocations outside of Charlotte if your finding HDR it's canned that day and the 10 cases will be gone in 2-3 hours. Fresh is so much better. I think as long as the temps are not extreme for too long the beer should be good. It's summer so this is an issue as potentially big as the cold in the winter, but when you buy from a good bottle shop and not Total Wine it's not a problem. Forget beer from the wine/beer super stores.

 

All of Founders 4- 6-pks say "keep refrigerated".

 

I'm surprised the MillerCoors "3-30-300 rule" hasn't been mentioned on this site yet... but... I'm fairly confident that IPAs are even more susceptible to temperature.

 

Even if you "buy it cold," there's no way of knowing where it was stored prior to buying it at that store. Even at my stores where there is a "cold case," there is still additional stock that's stacked around the warehouse. There's maybe a case in the window, but a stack of cases on the floor. When the cold stuff sells, more goes into the case from the warm stock.

I appreciate the debate over rapidity of hop-loss, etc, but there's no way of knowing the "handling history" in these beers, unless they develop a sensor/sticker like the cell phones have that show if it's ever been wet. That would be a marketing gimmick, huh? "This beer has never been above 50º..." proof-of-temp-storage. It ships green, and turns black if it hits certain temp...

I'll keep enjoying my "beers of uncertain storage history..."

Cheers!

 

Our highest rated local IPA isn't sold at the source. It's sold in undated bottles on room temperature shelves at grocery stores. For more than Bells or Founders.

"Buy local" isn't a magical phrase that guarantees ideal conditions.

 

Some IPAs are actually better at room temperature than thy are refrigerated, IMHO. Sixpoint Breweries makes an American Double IPA called Resin (http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10607/77299/). It's quite good even for the style. But I don't like it refrigerated/cold. I love it at room temperature though. Go figure!

 

I'd say this thread is primarily about refrigerated storage for preservation of beer freshness, not about serving/drinking beer at "refrigeration" temperatures.

 

I guess so. Sorry for the misunderstanding. But drinking temperature would be a decent topic in its own right.

 

Thanks for linking that MillerCoors presentation.

On chart 12 it states:

Beer starts to lose its brewery-fresh flavor if kept: 30 days at 71°F



On chart 14 it states:

Bottle and Can Delivery to Warm Inventory

Bottle and can product that is delivered into warm inventory at retail, such as warm floor inventory or displays is to be rotated into cold inventory, at 33° to 38° F, after no more than 14 days in warm inventory


Well my local beer store keeps the beer on the floor at room temperature (e.g., 71°F) with no rotation to a cold room.


Does that mean that the beer is only ‘good’ for 30 days!?!


Cheers!

 

Russian River Brewing has strict rules that distributors and retailers must keep their beer continuously refrigerated.

A few years ago on a warm summer day, I drove up to Santa Rosa and purchased a case of super fresh and cold Pliny the Elder. On my way home I stopped in San Francisco for a few hours. By the time I got home the case of Pliny was pretty warm so I re-refrigerated.

Anyhow.. long story short, that case of Pliny never tasted quite right.

Now I bring a cooler full of ice along when I make the trek.

 

They may have those rules...but how do they enforce them? None of the beer (including RR) we buy here is delivered on refrigerated trucks...and Coors 30/30/300 rule is likewise a pie in the sky ideal. And lets be realistic...if every beer retailer were to maintain those ideals...beer would quickly skyrocket in price (it costs a lot to keep stores that cool all year around)...Finally, if big brewers were really that concerned about the freshness of their beers, they wouldn't offer quantity discounts on massive beer purchases by retailers to discourage their beers from sitting in inventory. As far as IPA's are concerned...my guess is that unless you buy the beer directly from the brewery, you have consumed beers that have been through several temp swings.

 

This is a complete myth. Beer, particularly hoppy beer, should be kept cold as much as possible to prevent or at least slow the degradation and oxidation of the hops, the isomerized alpha acides degrade to trans 2 nonenal, or 'wet cardboard' flavor. With that said, changing temperature from room temp to chilled and back again has no impact on the beer whatsoever, only the amount of time it spends at the warmer temperature, or a much wider swing (freezing is bad, 'hot' is very bad).

Beer that you are looking to age, on the other hand, should be kept below the temperature at which it would have been fermented, however not necessarily 'cold' as this will slow the natural aging of the beer (the exact thing you're looking to prevent in a fresh, hoppy beer), thus 'cellar' temperature is ideal, generally around 50-60 degrees, perhaps a little lower for lagers.

edit: sorry, I realized after reading further that I was a little late to the "it's a myth" party. I'd like to think my explanation at least added additional information and was useful in some way.

 

I feel so sad for Pennsylvania! I don't know how RR enforces but in my area RR beers arrives at retailers cold - delivered in refrigerated trucks. I'm fairly positive that Pliny the Elder is kept cold in most of the Bay Area retail establishments something which is not too difficult because it sells out within an hour or two. Vinnie has made it pretty clear that he does not want his beer sold anywhere that did not refrigerate.... which is part of the reason BevMo (notorious for not refrigerating and respecting beer) has not been allowed to sell Pliny. That said, I saw DBI delivering Pliny to a South Bay BevMo a couple times last year - they walked it straight from a refrigerated truck to a refrigerator in the back of the store. So the distributors and retailers are aware of the "rules" (so to speak).

On occasion I've seen small liquor stores hiding it (unrefrigerated) behind the front cash register - ensuring nice warm bottles are there for their good customers at $9.00 per bottle. LOL.

 

Feel bad for us re: RR, but not because Pliny and Blind Pig are shipped warm or kept around... feel bad for us because because we don't get them at all, just the sours (nothing wrong with those, but god I'd love to get some Pliny on the regular)

 

You got that right. I work for a distributor and I can't tell how many times I have unloaded trailers of "hot" beer. Especially import stuff that is ship in a cargo container, no insulation just metal. Some of our beers can sit over the weekend in triple digit weather.

 

A number of BAs have posted they like to try a given beer multiple times to sort of ‘average’ out transport and storage and age effects. It really is a bit unfair to judge a single beer if it does not taste ‘good’; that particular beer could have been ‘damaged’ by heat, rough handling, old age, etc.

Cheers!