The Light and the Skunk

I don't remember ever having a skunked beer from a Brown bottle. Green and clear, now that's a different story...

 

There is really no one definitive answer, since there are a number of other factors besides time that can affect the outcome - type of florescent tube, use or absence of UV filters*, distance from light, location of the bottle (top shelf or front row), thickness/opaqueness of glass, color of beer, hopping level, etc. And while a beer may have been bottled six months ago, unless one has monitored the shelf, there's no way to know if it may have been "in the back" or in a distributor's warehouse for most of that time, and only removed from the case recently.

Here's a study done in Australia (so some aspects differ re: US bottles) back in the 80s on beer stored in lighted coolers - thus, the light exposure is a bit more intense than room temp. store lighting. Still, they found that under some "normal" conditions, chances of a light struck brown bottled beer could be "significant" after only a bit longer than a week's exposure.

I don't like to buy any beer that I think may have been stored on the "warm" shelves and exposed to light for more than a month. Some may scoff, but unless one can do a side-by-side of two bottles of the same beer, same batch - one stored under ideal conditions (dark and cool) and the other "exposed" - saying "it tasted fine" isn't really proof.

* UV filters can help, but since the section of the light spectrum that causes beer to become
light struck includes some visible light (up to 550 nm), they can't prevent it.​

 

I stuck a couple All Day IPAs on my windowsill in direct sunlight for months to see what would happen. They got a little skunky, but really not very much for the amount of time they sat there, they were still damn good.

 

Wanted to bring this back to the top.
I have a glass front fridge for my beers in the garage. The only light they would see is when the light is turned on in there, which are florescent but have a cover over them.
Should the front glass of the fridge be tinted?
Or does the cover over the lights block the UV?

 

Yeah it is a commercial cooler unit.

 

Here it is

 

No, I had it opened, to much reflection trying to snap a photo with it shut.

 

Thanks, if you ever make it out to San Diego you are more than welcome to come have some beers.
Will be making a post hopefully in the next few weeks of what my entire garage set up is like.
Trying to finish off hanging some items on walls and trying to track down one more arcade game first.

 

There's a company in Fla that sells static cling tint. I bought some 10 years ago for my sky lights and it worked great.Got about 5 years out of it before the heat destroyed it. Wouldn't be an issue indoors or on a fridge.

 

bacon mug - cheese filled. not mine downloaded the image