I was grabbing some bottles from my cellar and noticed one my bottles of Naughty Temple seems to have rusting beneath the wax. I love this beer and was hoping to age it for a while but am not sure if it will be good still. Has anyone else noticed this issue? Is it even an issue? I'd hate to open this bottle down the line only to have serious issues with it. Thanks.
This also happens with a lot of Prairie Ales, I havent noticed any adverse effects. It may be the way they were waxed.
Rust usually means a bad seal in the plastic liner of the cap, which exposes it to moisture and oxygen, which = rust. Hopefully the wax negates any exposure of the beer to oxygen though! It should be fine because of the wax.
More than likely it means the bottles were waxed cold. Which when it comes in contact with the hot wax creates condensation on the cap were it is trapped by the newly applied wax. The trapped condensation sits on the cap and rusts.
That makes sense and if this is what happened, then it sounds as though the rust is on the outside of the cap (not under the cap), so the seal should still be fine.
@TgBC @tgchief Gonna revive this because i went and grabbed mine from the basement and noticed a significant amount of rust that can be seen through the wax, even turned the white wax yellow. Whats your take on these? Are they fine to drink?
in my experience on these bottles they were probably waxed while wet from the bottling line or as said before waxed cold which caused condensation. Once you pop it you won't see any wax underneath the cap itself just around the outside.
Drink it. We had a 2012 Mother of all Storms that had rust between the foil and the cap. Was the best Barley Wine I ever drank. Glad we didn't let the rust stop it's from trying it. It's just condensation rust, and it's fine.
I've been considering removing the wax from my remaining NT since I would just as soon sit on them another 6-12 months before drinking and don't want this issue to continue to worsen.
