Should Beer Be Stored Cold For Freshness? | exBEERiments

[@mkeysou812]

I'd love to see a comparison of a strong beer aged warmer vs cold. I've often wondered if a barley wine might actually develop nicer flavours at room (or cellar) temperature rather than fridge temp

[@vincentr.6109]

I've never stored a barley wine in my fridge. I've kept them in my basement, slightly below grade. While I don't know the exact temperature, it's usually fairly consistent. Most of the time I stored Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. I found it really hit a peak around 4 years old. I had one 5-year-old one which seemed to have some ever-so-slight ester notes I didn't like. For reference, the 5-year-old beer was from when they still used twist off caps.

[@ElementaryBrewingCo]

Absolutely store my beer cold at all times! I’ve got hoppy beer in cans that tastes fresh even after a year of storage! Cheers Martin 🍻

[@KenNelson-b1p]

To put the temperature stuff in perspective, every 20°F change in temperature alters the rate of the chemical reaction by 100%, so, raising the temperature by 20°F will double the speed of the chemical reaction, and lowering the temperature by 20° will slow the chemical reaction to half speed. Staling of beer is a slow process, so the longer the time at the different temperature, the more noticeable the effect.

[@AlexBradford23]

I typically won't go to beer stores that keep them room temp and you'll only make the mistake of not looking for a canned on date when getting NEIPA's. 3 months is pushing it, anything over that on a hazy I won't buy

[@marksoler7338]

Wish I had the room to store cold! I am subject to the garage as well. Some beers benefit, others dont.

[@jac540]

Chest freezer in the garage set to storage temperature?

[@ianlaker9161]

To be honest I'm more concerned with storage temperature relative to carbonation. I don't have the luxury of enough space to condition my beers (in bottle) at optimum cool temperature. They have to take their chance in crates in my garage. In the warmer months this can mean they are pretty damn lively on opening. Now we're well into November, those ambient temperatures are ideal and things are much more controlled on opening. In both cases the beers would obviously be in the fridge for a good few hours prior to serving of course and I can't say I've ever noticed any drop in quality from those stored at the higher temperature.

[@dampaul13]

I think there can be issues with long-term cold storage (not weeks or months, but years) to do with the stability of the product, at least from what I remember about red wine (particulate matter falling out of solution), but I'll have to look that up. As far as the freshness of a beer, there are changeable factors that most consumers will never know, and can be hard to define, which can have massive impacts on the 'apparent' freshness of a beer. - Dissolved oxygen (DO); including the cumulative effect of DO through the brewing process. A beer might already be showing signs of oxidation before it is even packaged. - Total packaged oxygen (TPO); the ingress/trapping of oxygen at the time of packaging. - Quality and control of the packaging line; how well the packline is maintained/run can have a huge impact on TPO. - Type of packaging; cans vs bottles. Okay, this is pretty obvious. - Date of packaging; this should be pretty obvious, too. - Type and quality of closure, relates to bottles. Quality of cork, crown seal, etc. Seal pressure of the crown seal, etc - Ingress rate via packaging; not an issue with cans or kegs, but an issue for all types of closures for bottles, relating to the point above. - Logistics chain/storage temperature; obviously what this video is about. Even before reaching the retail setting, how has the beer been treated? Not all packaging lines are created equal. Canning lines are often more problematic than bottling lines, potentially resulting in a greater chance of increased TPO. Cans have a larger aperture, often resulting in much higher TPO. Bottles allow ingress of oxygen through the closet. Cans do not. Some styles suit bottles. I for one want oxygen ingress in something like a lambic, where I want Cans aren't better than bottles. Cans CAN be better than bottles. Bottles can be better than cans. It all depends. In the simplest terms, 'ageing' is the effects of oxygen on food products like beer, wine, cheese, etc. By some metrics, something along the lines of for every 10c increase in temperature results in doubling the rate of ageing. Most of our knowledge on 'ageing' food products is when we have continuous ingress of oxygen, something that cans don't do. Something I can't have answered is, in cans, the level of dissolved oxygen reduces as the oxidative chemical reaction (redox) occurs, but what happens when all the oxygen has been used up and there is no more oxygen ingress ingress of oxygen, how does the product continue to age?

[@raulromero6462]

I store my beer between 10°c to 16°c, for 4 years before I drink it. In each 100 bottles, 5 will be garbage. Here in Europe, aged beer is more expensive and I do prefer it this way.

[@JimP226]

I store cold as long as I have the fridge space. I do buy cheap on sale budlight for those who would rather drink something closer to resembling water than beer. That I just leave out and only keep about a handful in the fridge at a time.

[@lafamillecarrington]

Typically, a 10ºC temperature reduction will halve the reaction rate (although that's just an average). So storing beer at 4ºC rather than 20ºC is likely to have a dramatic effect on its shelf life. I'd also be interested in the effect of storage in plastic bottles. My - very limited - experience suggests that glass bottles are much better.

[@МаксимКурский-т8д]

Пиво в пластиковых бутылках хранится, по моему опыту, не более 2 месяцев. Потому что испаряется углекислый газ

[@xander1052]

Frankly never been to a bottleshop that didn't store in fridges. Pretty much the bare minimum round here