Fresh Beer

by George de Piro

Many people, including beer distributors and retailers, treat beer as if it is an indestructible commodity rather than a delicate food item.  It suffers in a hot warehouse for months before being shipped to a retail outlet.  Once there, it is tortured on a warm, brightly lit shelf for weeks until somebody buys it.  The beer arrives at the home of its new owner, praying for relief from its abused existence, but finds none.  It is again subjected to high temperatures and bright light in the garage or back porch.  The beer, unable to withstand further cruelty, dies without fulfilling its simple desire to please a palate.

Until the last decade, this was the common fate of most beer in the United States.  The unfortunate consolidation of the American brewing industry that occurred after Prohibition forced consumers to choose from monotonous domestic beers that were usually past their prime or imported brews that were wretchedly stale.  The reemergence of brewpubs in America has changed all that, giving consumers something they had missed for three generations:  the taste of truly fresh beer.

Beer is a perishable food, and while it cannot harbor pathogenic organisms as it stales, its flavor becomes severely compromised.  There are five things that cause beer to stale:

Warm temperatures will hasten the spoilage of beer, like any other food.  The chemical reactions that occur during beer staling are accelerated by temperature.  It is best to keep beer refrigerated at all times.  A common myth is that cycling beer from cold to warm and back to cold temperatures will damage its flavor.  This is only true in that warm temperatures are bad for beer.  Keeping beer cool is always good for the preservation of its flavor.

Cycling the temperature can cause beers to become noticeably cloudy.  Lightly filtered craft beers are most susceptible to this phenomena, but highly filtered beers are not immune.  This haze does not effect the flavor of the beer, and is therefore not of much concern to the educated consumer.

Motion is damaging to beer flavor in much the same way as warmth.  The staling reactions are accelerated by mixing of the beer.  Motion and warmth together are truly deadly to beer flavor, which is why beers that are shipped overseas will never taste as good as they might in their home markets. 

Time will age all things, and beer is no exception.  While some beer styles will benefit from extended aging, the majority reach peak flavor about six weeks after brew day.  There is little we can do to protect beer from time, other than accelerate it to near light speed to reap the benefits of time dilation.  Drinking it while fresh is more technologically feasible at this point in time. 

Light is the cause of one of the most common stale beer characteristics:  skunking.  When visible light (the kind that can be detected by the human eye) strikes beer, it reacts with the chemicals from the hops, rearranging them into the exact compound that skunks spay!  Clear and green bottles offer no protection from light, and brown bottles offer only limited protection.  That is why many popular import beers, packaged in green or clear glass, are skunked. 

Oxygen is the last thing on the list of beer spoilers because it is usually only of concern to the brewer.  Most of the chemical reactions that cause beer staling are greatly accelerated when oxygen is present in the package.  Beer that has been exposed to air can become wretched in as little as four days if kept warm! 

While many breweries go to great lengths to keep oxygen out of their beer, there are some bars that serve draft beer by pushing it out of the keg with compressed air rather than carbon dioxide.  This is a very bad practice.  Beer served in this manner will go flat overnight and stale very quickly. 

The flavor transformation that occurs as a beer ages is dependent on the style of beer and the brewing techniques used to make it.  Light-colored beers generally increase in vegetable and lipstick-like characteristics.  Darker beers tend to develop sherry-like notes in place of their malt character.  These changes are not appreciated in most beer styles. 

Hop aroma and bitterness decrease with age regardless of beer color, and abusing the beer will only speed up this process.  A general loss of liveliness occurs in the beer’s flavor.  Some of this can be attributed to a loss of hop character while the increase of stale-tasting compounds is also a factor. 

Some beers develop buttery notes as they age.  Many consumers do not mind this familiar flavor when it is present as a background note, but may be repulsed by this characteristic when it overwhelms the beer.  Sometimes the brewery’s procedures can hasten the development of rancid, buttery notes.  Many English breweries use techniques that make beer especially unfit for travel.  While these beers can taste wonderful at the source, they can upset distant consumers. 

Brewpub brewers have a tremendous advantage over packaging breweries; we have total control over our beer from the time the ingredients are delivered to the moment it touches the consumer’s lips.  The beer at the Pump Station is kept cold, dark, and free of oxygen.  It tastes as fresh as beer can possibly taste.

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