Is non pasturized the same as bottle conditioned or are the 2 different?

Well...quite different, although sharing some of the same processes...not very well put...definitely different...

 

It´s different, there are non pasteurized and pasteurized bottle conditioned beer.

 

Some beers are pasteurized.
Some beers are bottle conditioned.
Some beers are pasteurized and bottle conditioned

Pasteurizing kills any yeast in the beer left over from fermentation, so some breweries pasteurize so as to not let their proprietary house yeast strain leave. Then they bottle condition with a neutral yeast, like champagne yeast.

 

They are not the same.

Pasteurization is done prior to bottling and involves heating the beer (or other beverages) up to kill unwanted microorganisms from changing the beer once it's in the bottle. Pasteurization theoretically is a safeguard against beers becoming sour (on the chance that they were contaminated with lacto or some other souring bacteria).

Bottle conditioning is done after bottling and involves pitching the bottle with some yeast in order to help with carbonation as well as enable the beer's flavor to evolve over time.

So while they are related (insofar as both deal with how the beer changes/stays the same over time once it's in the bottle), they are different processes. You can do one without the other. Or both. Or neither. I'm pretty sure Boulevard flash pasteurizes most of their beers, but also does bottle conditioning, for example.

 

Welcome to the BA site, slackercruster. These two terms that you asked about are pretty well defined by the posts above, but if you have any future need to define other beer terms, here's a link to the Glossary on this site.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/101/terms/

 

There are lots of variables here but let me discuss one: a commercial beer can be unpasteurized but not bottle conditioned. The vast majority of craft beer is not pasteurized and only a minority of craft beer is bottle conditioned.

The advantage of craft beer being unpasteurized is that the beer is not ‘cooked’ during the packaging process and there are flavor benefits for the beer not being ‘cooked’.

Macro brewers (AB, MillerCoors, etc.) prefer to pasteurize their beers since that process can extend the shelf life of the beer by killing unwanted organisms that may be present in the beer.

Cheers!

 

Yeah, what they said (*late to the party*)

 

Remember when the big deal aboot Coors was that it wasn't pasteurized?

 

I'll say it my way, different from many of the brethren above:

1) No beer which is bottle-conditioned is pasteurized. Pasteurization kills the active yeast and bacteria and by definition, bottle-conditioned beer contains live yeast which at least for a time continues a slow conditioning (production of alcohol and CO2). Some beer is pasteurized to render it sterile and then re-seeded with live yeast: this beer becomes bottle-conditioned due to the presence and working of the re-seeded yeast.

2) A non-pasteurized beer is non-bottle-conditioned when it is filtered or centrifuged such that it contains almost no live yeast which can continue to work in the bottle. For many years this was, and is to a degree, the model of the craft brewing industry but lately there is a tendency to package beer in draft and in bottle or can with enough residual yeast to condition the beer further, so this is bottle- or keg-conditioned beer.

 

Right, but it was well-filtered and therefore not conditioned in the bottle or can (or keg). I just had a can of DAB Dark which was excellent, unusually so as German canned beers in my experience on this side of the pond rarely seem to have the freshness and correct taste they do in Europe. Then I looked at the can and lo, it says "Draft Quality". I believe this beer may be non-pasteurized and if so, it points up the extra quality a non-pasteurized beer has at least after 3 months and more from packaging versus the usual way it is sold. (What I mean here is, many reputed brewers claim not to be able to detect differences in pasteurized and non-pasteurized beers at the brewery. I'm not sure I agree with that but in any case, there may be a difference or larger difference that shows up when both are compared many months after leaving the brewery).

If the DAB beer was nonetheless pasteurized, I wonder what "draft" means...

 

It simply means "drawn" from a vessel.It makes no sense in a bottled or canned beer.

Regarding filtration, this is widely regarded as not doing the beer any favours and perhaps affects it as much as pasteurisation.

 

In the US, canned or bottled beer labeled "Draft" or "Draught" must be unpasteurized or labeled as such (e.g., the fine print around the base of a can of Guinness Draught - "Pasteurized Stout"). While in the first few decades after Repeal half gallon so-called "picnic" bottles of unpasteurized beer, labeled KEEP REFRIGERATED, were marketed, for the most part the packaged beers that were sold as "real draft" were microfiltered and sterile-filled - the same process Coors helped pioneer in the late 1950s while they were also working on the aluminum can (the latter necessary for the process). Haffenreffer also worked to develop the process and, after selling the brand to family member who owned Narragansett, Arthur Haffenreffer went to work for Millipore, the company that made the filters and helped develop the process.

The dozens of beers marketed during 60s labeled "real draft" (the longest-lived and best remembered being Hamm's Draft and Piels Real Draft but most every Top 20 US brewer had "real draft" versions of their flagship brands) were all done under that sort of process process, as is, with a slightly different filter (developed in Japan by Saporo), Miller Genuine Draft.

Coors, of course, besides not using the by-then conventional "real draft" terminology, was a very conservative company at the time, and unlike other breweries selling "real draft" beer in cans or bottles, used a very short shelf life (2 month) and required refrigeration from their wholesalers.

In the US, the regulation is:

From the initial ATF (pre-TTB) decision from 1965 -
"USE OF THE TERM "DRAFT BEER" ON LABELS AND IN ADVERTISING OF BEER"

So, given DAB's wording on the US cans (below), at least, it's a bit unclear how the beer has been treated, since they use both "DRAFT" and "DRAFT QUALITY" with no mention of pasteurization.

​

 

Yes, I well understand the fact that the legal authorities drive a waggon and horses through meanings (eg Texas and "ale"
But draught beer is widely understood to be that which is drawn from a cask or keg , the word is supposed to separate this practice from bottled or canned.

 

Very interesting, this DAB tasted great, the best-by date on the base of the can is 04/16. I doubt this means the beer was canned this month, there is no way that can be, the company must use > 12 months for its freshness window. Maybe 15 months. The can here reads the same (I mean, for the red seal shown by Jess above) as in the U.S. In fact the importer is stated as Radeberger Gruppe USA, Norwalk, CT 06851 and I'd guess some of the U.S. shipments are simply hived off for sale in Ontario through The Beer Store, one of the authorized outlets to buy beer at retail here. Most German beers in my experience as sold here, even when seemingly just a few months from packaging, have a strong flavor that never seemed right to me, but this one doesn't. I've always wondered if the reason is they don't respond well to pasteurization.

 

Pasteurization is about keeping a beer in stasis by killing off whatever living things are in the beer.
Bottle conditioning is about including more, and more food for it thus allowing a beer to evolve.

 

So does this mean that unpasteurized beers wouldn't age well, since there's no yeast?

 

Really? How is that done? From the brewery tours I've been on, beers are pasteurized once bottled.

 

The beer is sent through a heat exchanger to reach pasteurization temps, then cooled in another heat exchanger.

Do a web search for beer Pastuerization equipment, view the images, and you can see the flash pastuerizers and also bottle pastuerizers.

 

This is not correct. The only beers we pasteurize are beers that see time in a barrel (with the exception of sours) or beers that have a raw material, except hops, added in the fermenter. Examples of this include Chocolate Ale (cacao nibs are added after fermentation) and Imperial Stout X - Coffee (the coffee is added just before filtration.) The beer is pasteurized before being filtered and is still bottle conditioned. More details on a blog I wrote for our website:

http://www.boulevard.com/pasteurization-at-boulevard/