Placing beer on its side...

Nope, not after bottling. :-)

 

They also have no other way to store them between bottling and shipping.

 

I just saw that they've started cellaring in a huge bomb shelter. It's like 8 times their current compacity.

 

Compacity?

 

It is Recommended for wine. Six months down & six months up, as I have always heard it.

 

no spell good for nite time.

 

beer doesnt last that long in my fridge for that to be a problem!

 

True, but it allows me to put them on a shelf where there isn't room for the bottle to stand upright.

 

I store a lot of my "everyday" beers on their side in a mini fridge and I've noticed that it seems to make beers of all sorts gush more often than storing them vertically.

 

So should corked beers be stored vertically or horizontally? Still seems to be some confusion about this...

 

Not sure about long term storage, but most bottle conditioned beer I've seen recommends refrigerating upright for at least 24 hours before serving to allow sediment to settle.

I would hypothesize that beer on its side would allow more of the beer's surface area to be exposed to any oxygen in the bottle. I have no data to back that up, whatsoever. In fact, the Brownian motion of the beer would eventually allow every particle and molecule of the beer to be exposed to any gas in the bottle eventually, regardless of orientation.

 

Depends on the cork. Beers with Champagne corks (just need a nudge and they'll pop out) should be stored vertically like all other beers, shrinkage is a non-issue due to the amount of internal pressure, oxygen just won't get in.

Beers corked like normal wine, such as Cantillons, should be stored horizontally for long stretches for the same reason as wine, cork shrinkage and the introduction of oxygen would be much more detrimental than the larger area of air/beer contact that you get from storage on its side compared with vertical. Ideally, the bottle will then be moved to vertical storage for a few days or a week or two prior to being opened to allow the sediment to settle on the bottom of the bottle.

Uncorked beers (or Champagne-corked beers) should be stored vertically to minimize the amount of surface area the 'bubble' has with the beer, which will oxidize it faster the larger this area is, if the bubble is in the neck it should be very small, on the side of the bottle much larger. There is a school of thought that bottle conditioned beers should be stored on their side to increase the amount of area of yeast/beer contact, but personally I'd think that the increased air/beer contact will be more detrimental than the increased yeast/beer contact will be helpful.

 

I thought this was recommended for beers with corks not beers with caps. Someone correct me if I am wrong

 

It's bad. The only beers that you should keep on their side are Lambics.

 

I would be thrilled if someone could take a position and give good evidence for it. Enough speculation; I want data!

 

Yeah, that’s right. There's a blog out there with lots of cool photos. Apparently van Roy is investing something like about 3000 bottles a year from the brewery's annual output in a long term cellaring/storage project with the coopration of the city of Brussels (the city owns the bomb shelter). Sounds to me like a great opportunity to increase the supply of pre-aged bottles and keep the brewery solvent in the future. He is storing the bottles in a stack on their sides just as he does at the brewery. Guess he thinks that’s the best way to age the beers.

 

Came upon this...
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/101/store/

 

Came to post this myself when I saw the title, nicely done.

 

Correct. A bottle stored vertically will have less of its liquid surface area exposed to air than if it is stored horizontally. There is a time factor, but in reasonably speaking, horizontal, bad.

However, vertically stored corked product will dry out and ruin the contents eventually, so:

Corked - lay flat (for sure!)
Bottled - vertical ok

 

The gas in sealed beer bottles is almost exclusively CO2, which does little damage long term to the beer (it is carbonated with the stuff). @TrojanRB correctly points out that a dry cork will fail, however. Wine has to be laid down for the same reason. Store you beer at an angle and give it a 180 turn occasionally.