What constitutes skunked?

Yeah, and it's kinda why I wish that term "skunked" would disappear, since so many seem to use it for any off-flavor, rather than for beer that is actually "Light-struck".

Note a number of posts above that say "skunked beer" is a result of heat - if the heat wasn't the result of the beer being exposed, or in conjunction with exposure, to sunlight or other bright light - like typical store florescent lighting - while in a glass or a bottle (not a can or keg) then that beer, no matter the off-flavor, is not "Light-struck".

"Scubbed"? Well, they claimed it just "disappeared" (twice)... , which is even less work, I guess, or just more magical?

Well, de-decanting (bottle>glass>another glass), I guess, is some work (dishwashing, if nothing else) and you'll loss some carbonation. The thing with lightstruck beer is it is more in the aroma than the taste (yeah, they're linked, of course).

Maybe someone - not me, I don't waste beer - should do that experiment, taste light-stuck beer without being able to smell it. Some claim that's why Corona is so often consumed directly out of the lime-inserted bottle.

 

Those people can do a comparison between beers, one exposed to light on a south facing windowsill, one placed in the oven at 160 F for many hours ( 24 is an industry test IIRC). Then chill and taste side by side, lightstruck vs. stale.

 

There's massive variation in human perception and thresholds of thiols, this one included. Seeing as how some folks can perceive skunky flavors at levels lower than our GC instruments can detect, we haven't spent a lot of time on trying to quantify acceptable levels or scrubbing; instead we just try and avoid it altogether.

 

I couldn't agree more! That bugs me so much. The Germans have a nice specific word for it (as they have for everything) because they don't have skunks in Germany, but it never caught on over here.

 

Hmmm...I always felt that Noble or Germanic hops wafted of skunkiness in the lighter green bottle lagers I've had.

 

Is that word Iltis (German for polecat)?

Cheers!

 

Lichtgeschmack? (According to my copy of Elsevier's Dictionary of Barley, Malting And Brewing in Six Languages).


Yeah, not sure that's gonna over well in the US, where folks still ridicule Heileman, Schaefer and many other long-gone brewers from using the term “Kräusening”. (Granted, that did have the umlat thing goin' on, too).

 

Yeah, translates literally to "tastes like/of light". The scientists have adopted the American term light-struck recently too, I think they say vom Licht getroffen. They think it's bizarre that we say skunky, until they actually smell a skunk.

 

Do skunks not live in Germany?

 

They do not. They are a uniquely north american animal.

 

Those poor bastards

 

Who? Germans or Skunks?

 

Germans!

 

To add to the earlier conversation and the actual question, if a beer is actually light struck (not cabbage or generic sulphur smell) and you're smelling isopentyl mercaptan (as we always referred to it in class), your experience of it "going away" is actually olfactory acclimation. It's not disappearing from the beer, you're just filtering it out to avoid sensory fatigue. You do this more rapidly with thiols than most other smells (because they tend to be incredibly intense).

If you put that beer down and came back to it a little while later, you would definitely smell skunk again. Try it!

 

I personally do not doubt this. My belief is that once a beer is skunked it is skunked.

Cheers!

 

It’s been a while since I’ve come across a skunked beer, but in this case a St Pauli Girl, but I’ve never had a more pungent cabbage smell ever. It stunk up the room, and I promptly poured it out. A prayer over that bottle by the Pope couldn’t save it, that was a stinky undrinkable mess, the other 5 joined his buddy too. The only skunked beers I’ve had were this particular St Pauli Girl, and Heineken before they changed the carrier, but I haven’t bought either in 15 years.

 

I agree with your frustration but disagree that that does much to rectify the solution.

"Skunked" actually implies something super specific, the creation of 3-MBT (yes, by hop compounds being struck by UV rays), which is literally the same chemical compound found in skunk spray; it smells like a skunk because it's the same thing.

As I understand it, however, fluorescent (and LED) lights DO emit UV rays at wavelengths that can skunk beer. Sunlight does it faster, of course.

 

Yes, it should imply that - my annoyance with it is the frequent mis-use of the term.

Yes, fluorescent light does also "skunk" beer which I noted in my post - that's why I feel the preferred term is "lightstruck" (sunlight or fluorescent light) - not the older "sunstuck" term. Plus, the Europeans don't know what skunks smell like and they don't accept the answer:
"Well, like a bottle of Heineken that's been exposed to light."

Also, it is not just the UV wavelength that affects the beer, even a portion of visible spectrum can cause it. (Thus filters on fluorescent bulbs or the supposed "coating" on green bottles are not totally effective).

* “UV light” [10 nm to 400 nm]

 

I guess at a simpler level: if they can’t identify skunk = skunk, then it seems just as unlikely that they will identify light struck = skunk. The most likely outcome is that you’ll then have people misusing two terms: this beer tastes light struck because it was touched by light (Actually has a diacetyl issue)! And this beer tastes skunked (actually dimethyl sulfide), which is different than light struck, which I now know to be true because people are now saying light struck all the time!

 

I'll go back a bit further - late 1970's. In high school at the time, and I never liked the stuff personally. Everybody (remember, 17- 18 year olds), thought Heineken was a higher ABV beer even though it actually wasn't - that was one thing. Apparently we all flunked reading...and math... Truth - I remember people saying "man, I had a few Heinekens last night and I was totally wasted" and a few meant like three - essentially wishful(?) thinking, I guess. It was one of the few imports readily available at the time, so there was a cool factor/status symbol (shared eventually by the Fosters' oil can) and it wasn't Dad's Schlitz, Bud, Miller or anything else domestic - pick a name for "old people beer" from the way-back machine. It was far easier to get than Coors Banquet Beer at the time - if you could score Coors in those days, you were a real hero with all the benefits that pertained if ya know what I mean... If you got Heineken you achieved some fleeting stardom that flamed out more quickly.

Famous for light-struck at least in Massachusetts - Haffenreffer, but we drank it anyway for one reason - CHEAP and it allegedly contained alcohol. And maybe it was like the Hobbits discovering pints - it was in 40 oz. bottles. The riddles on the caps were bonus points, I suppose.