Why do some brewers still use green or clear bottles?

Without a doubt! Thats my understanding of it, anyway...growing up, I enjoyed the skunk taste and just thought it was part of that beer's particular flavor.

Even today, if I'm in a bar or at a concert where the only choices are Bud and Heineken, I'd go with the Heineys b/c of the skunk flavor.

 

HEINEKEN beers are brewed using solely water, barley, hops and yeast.

 

Thanks for the link. To be honest, the last place I would've thought to check was the Heineken web site. Do you know when they stopped using adjuncts?

 

No idea really. I know that Carlsberg went all-malt around 2000, due to the GMO debate.

 

How do you even get past the smell of skunk when the bottle is opened to tell what the taste is like?

 

I think its all psychological: when I taste/smell skunk, I automatically revert back to being a 16 year old or whatever and perceive that as 'good' and 'the intended flavor.'

Although I no longer particularly enjoy that flavor/smell, its just a vestige of my youth....I associate it with drinking for the first time, and connect the 'skunk' with that enjoyment.

Its almost as if a shoe manufacturer put horse shit on all of their shoes, b/c they found that people who lived on farms just thought that shoes were just 'supposed' to smell that way and grew to like it.

 

Thinks. Interesting. We once had a dog that tangled up with a skunk. After having that around the house there's no way I can smell skunk and associate it with anything pleasurable. So I guess you wouldn't actually want to drink Heineken from the can or on tap since there's no skunk there...

 

According to Philip Van Munching's (Grandson of the longtime US importer) book, Beer Blast, the exported-to-the-US version* of Heineken was reformulated to be all-malt sometime in the early 1990s (book is unclear "...a few years earlier..." he says, in reference to Heineken USA's ads of the mid-90s).

Before that they used corn, and further back, according to interviews with Leo Van Munching, Sr., in the 1940s, he claimed Heineken used rice - in fact, he claimed they were the first brewery to use rice .

* Pretty sure Heineken, like many "international" beers, has different recipes for different markets "...to suit local tastes...". There was once, IIRC, a separate brewery in Holland that just brewed for US exports.

 

Actually, that was the book I was going to use as a reference to when I said that Heineken used corn. I remember Van Munching talking about corn grits in Heineken in the chapter about the beginnings of Sam Adams (and how much they loved Jim Koch). I don't remember the mention of switching to an all-malt recipe in the book, so I'll have to take a look at it again.

I did find this maybe an hour ago...
http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000011.html
... which was printed in 1993.

 

The skunk in Corona is actually dankness from a generous helping of Citra. True story.

 

Page 224 (hardcover edition, alternately, in Index - "Heineken Beer, reformulation of"), writing about a 1996 Heineken USA ad campaign (i.e., post-Van Munching era):

 

I have had a thousands beers...and yes I like skunk! That said...I don't go out looking for skunk and I don't have a regular spot in my fridge for skunk but...on a hot summer day I'll grab a sixer of Heineken, Becks or a Moose Head and enjoy the skunk out of it.

Everything taste different and I enjoy the nuances of flavors that different beers can deliver. Not good, not bad...just different...but in this case good for me. As far as I'm concerned "skunk" is a style all to its own. Taste is an opinionated personal preference and the easiest comparison I can make is that I enjoy my steak medium rare (lots of blood) and in the culinary world this is "considered" the way they should be eaten to enjoy maximum flavor. However, more people eat their steaks medium or medium well because they either like them better that way or they can't get past the raw meat aspect...either way, whom I to tell them they are wrong or better yet...that their taste buds are wrong?

For the record double IPAs are my beer of choice...if I have time to sit and enjoy. Regular IPAs or saisons if I'm killing time at the hole with my wife or buddies...cheers!

 

Clear bottles?
Because they're stupid.

 

As I've asked a few others. What do you do to get past the smell of skunk that fills the room when you crack open the bottle of a skunked beer?

 

Haha...nothing...that is part of the skunk...I like the smell too?

 

For me, hard to imagine, My reaction is much like that of the guy on the left in this video.

 

Of course, clear bottles were being used in the 19th century, and I watched a British film from 1941 where the beer was in clear bottles. It's not simply modern marketing.

 

Corona intentionally "skunks" their beer to give it a distinct flavor, by storing it in clear bottles. At least that's what I've been lead to understand.

 

I've had Heineken on draft and it still is pretty skunky out of a keg...I think beers like that are brewed that way and it has nothing to do with the bottle? I don't think the breweries are soaking their full beer bottles in the sun...and also don't think a few weeks/month getting to the vendor is going to do much to the flavor? I've drink a ton of BMC out of clear bottles and never got that skunk that I get from Heineken. They tried to explain the white/green bottle but I'm not buying. Sure a brown bottle will help protect it but what they are doing is cooking the beer...like the guy on the video said..."we spoiled the beer"...big difference between a "real" skunk beer and ruining a beer on purpose.

I love a good dark, heavy, rich stout but have seen people make the same face from the above video when they take a drink? Many not even trying to finish it. To each his own...

 

I always grab a 12 pack of Corona when on vacation at the beach (marketing) but have never really considered it skunky at all? Heineken, yes but very different flavors in my mind?