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The Impacts Of Freezing, Heat and Light on Beer

In the following experiments, we subjected a light beer (Corona Extra) to a barrage of separate extreme tests to measure the individual impacts of freezing, heat and light exposure.

The Impacts Of Freezing, Heating and Exposing Light to Beer

TASTE TEST PROCESS

We conducted repeated taste tests to see if any noticeable change could be detected using a kind of blind sensory method called a “triangle test”.  For example, when testing the effects of a certain factor like “beer exposed to light”, three unmarked samples of beer were poured, one of which was a sample that had been exposed to light, and the other two were unadulterated samples.

The testers were then asked to identify the sample they believed was different, and then the same test was repeated between 4 and 6 times to reduce the possibility that the testers were simply guessing correctly.  The tasters were not told in what way any beer had been altered.  Tasters were instructed to consider and describe the aroma, flavor, and carbonation level of each sample.

All beer samples were measured at three ounces each and served into snifter glasses at 50°F (10°C) in order to enhance the tester’s ability to detect any differences.

CHOICE OF BEER

The beer used in all experiments was Corona Extra, which was chosen in part due to its world-wide distribution making it more accessible to anyone who wanted to repeat any of these experiments on their own.  The other reasons a light beer like Corona was selected was because it’s said that it is easier to detect flaws in such light beers, and being bottled in a clear bottle makes the beer more susceptible to the effects of light exposure.  All beers purchased came from the same closed box (protected from light exposure), and were purchased from and subsequently kept in cold storage.  None of the control beers were determined to have any off-flavors.

THE EXPERIMENTS OF ICE, FIRE AND LIGHT:

THE IMPACT OF FREEZING BEER

It’s said that freezing and thawing a beer will reduce the level of carbonation in beer generating a “flatter” tasting beer.  Curious to see if a tasting panel could repeatedly identify a beer that had been frozen and then thawed compared to an unadulterated beer from the same case, a beer was frozen for two hours, thawed, and served immediately to a tasting panel who were asked to repeatedly identify the beer that was different.

The panelists were not told that the beer was frozen, but only to identify the beer that was different and describe what was different about it.

OBSERVATIONS

The tasting panel was able to correctly identify the frozen and then thawed beer with an accuracy rate of 75%.  The frozen and then thawed beer was described as slightly less carbonated and slightly less aromatic, and having a subtly duller flavor.  One taster noted a more “watery” character in the aroma.

The frozen and then thawed beer was also slightly lighter and hazy than the unadulterated beer as can be seen below (frozen and thawed beer on left, unadulterated beer on right):

Change in the Color of a Frozen Beer

To account for the minor difference in color, tasters were blindfolded, but were nevertheless still able to correctly identify the frozen and then thawed beer 75% of the time based on the aroma, flavor and carbonation level.

REFLECTIONS

The results of this test seem to reflect the commonly held ideas about the effects of freezing beer.  Interestingly, some tasters were able to correctly differentiate the beers by scent alone, while others could only correctly tell the difference by the different level of carbonation.  We approximate that the level of carbonation in the frozen beer was reduced by about 20-25%, resulting in fewer aromatics being generated for the nose to detect, and though no difference in flavor was noticed, folks did notice a difference in carbonation level resulting in what some described as a slightly duller beer.

Overall, the impact of freezing beer in this case was subtle and at times difficult to detect.

THE IMPACT OF HEATING BEER

It’s said that when beer is exposed to heat, it can reduce the shelf life of the beer by accelerating chemical reactions including oxidation. (It should be noted that aging certain styles of beer can be desirable as with certain Belgian sour beers and beers with higher alcohol concentrations.)

Curious to see if any noticeable change could be detected in heated beer, we wrapped a bottle of Corona Extra in aluminum foil to protect against light exposure, submerged the bottle in warmed water at a temperature range of 90-139°F  (32.22-59.44°C) for 24 hours, chilled to 50°F (10°C) and served immediately.

Heating a Bottle of Beer in a Pot

The general idea with this experiment was to approximate the effect of beer left in a hot car.  Although temperatures in a hot car can reach upwards of 172 F (77.78°C), we capped the testing temperature at 139°F (59.44°C).

For reference, below is a chart estimating vehicle interior air temperature v. elapsed time:

Estimated Vehicle Interior Air Temperature v. Elapsed Time

OBSERVATIONS

Tasters were able to correctly identify the heated beer 90% of the time by scent alone, with some tasters accuracy rate at 100% over 6 repeated trials.  Tasters described the aroma of the cooked beer as somewhat sulfury with notes of hard boiled eggs, sulfury mud, raw grey clay, and cooked corn.  The heated beer was also described as having slightly lower carbonation, and was less crisp and less hoppy in both aroma and flavor as compared to the unadulterated beer.  No difference in color was noted, but less of an alcoholic kick was noted in the heated beer.

REFLECTIONS

The degree to which heat negatively affected specifically the aroma of the beer tested was striking.  Where one might have expected characteristics associated with oxidation in a heated beer such as cardboard, sherry, or apple juice, instead sulfur notes were detected.

However, the sulfury notes that were identified, especially in the aroma of the heated beer, might be explained by the fact that the hydrogen sulfide level in filtered beer consistently doubles after pasteurization, which illustrates that the level is not static, but is affected by various redox reactions that take place in the packaged beer.

We essentially pasteurized the beer multiple times when repeatedly reheating the beer to 122–140°F (50–60°C) over 24 hours, thereby increasing the potential level of hydrogen sulfide which has a low sensory threshold of only a few parts-per-billion.

THE IMPACT OF EXPOSING BEER TO LIGHT

When beer is exposed to UV light, particularly in the range of 350-500 nm, a reaction occurs in hops that can cause the beer to take on a “skunky” or “marijuana-like” character.  The particular offending chemical compound generated in this light-caused reaction is called 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, or “3-MBT” for short, and can occur in under 10 seconds resulting in what is referred to as a “skunked” or “light-struck” beer.  A potent compound, humans are able to detect 3-MBT at a threshold of around 4 parts-per-trillion.

The color of glass beer is bottled in can affect this skunking reaction, with brown bottles offering better protection, green bottles far less, and clear bottles none.  This is why folks might notice this phenomenon more often with beers like Heineken and Beck’s that are bottled in green bottles, and beers like Corona packaged in clear bottles.  Many brewing companies well-aware of this phenomenon continue to package their beer in clear or green glass bottles mainly due to marketing and branding priorities.

Some brewing companies such as Miller Brewing  avoid the lightstruck problem in brands such as Miller High Life by using specially formulated hop extracts that do not react with UV light to create 3-MBT.

To test the impact of UV light on beer, clear bottles of Corona Extra were left in direct contact with sunlight for 10 hours at a temperature range of 60-69°F (15.56 -20.56°C), chilled to 50°F (10°C) and served immediately along with two unadulterated samples.  We figured even though it’s said that a beer can be skunked in as little as 10 seconds, just to be safe we might as well leave it exposed for 10 hours.

OBSERVATIONS

After repeating the same test four times to minimize any doubt of lucky guessing, panelists were able to correctly identify the beer that had been exposed to UV light each time with a 100% accuracy rate and by scent alone.  Although a strong skunk musk aroma was immediately noticeable upon opening the bottle, once the beer was served, bonus aromatics were noted including rotten vegetables (rotten squash), water from a backed-up kitchen sink, burnt rubber/plastic, and dirty waste water from a wet vac after cleaning a carpet.

REFLECTIONS

While certainly a skunk-like aroma was expected from exposing a light beer to UV light, the additional aromas of drain water, burnt rubber, and rotten vegetables were not.  That said, the chemical produced by beer exposed to UV light that causes the skunk-like aroma is called 3-MBT, a kind of mercaptan, which has also been described as burnt rubber.  However there are actually a variety of mercaptans that may be found in beer, such as methanethiol (methyl mercaptan) which has been described as “like drains or rotting garbage”, descriptors similar to aromas noted about this ultra lightstruck beer.

In short, it seems this unfortunate beer was first struck by light, and then by a garbage truck.

That said, the worst of the offending aromas seemed to become somewhat muted after leaving the opened lightstruck bottles of beer out indoors at room temperature for about 24 hours, suggesting that some of the mercaptans are volatile or perhaps intermediary byproducts in a longer chain of chemical reactions.

By the way, if you’re interested in a more formal scientific analysis of the effects of lightstruck beer over the course of several days, here’s a link to a 1965 Japanese paper called Studies of the Sunlight Flavor of Beer”.

Sunlight never tasted so gross.


Hi, I’m Dan: Beer Editor for Beer Syndicate, Beer and Drinking Blogger, Certified Beer Judge, Award-Winning Homebrewer and Cider Maker, Beer Reviewer, American Homebrewers Association Member, Shameless Beer Promoter, and Beer Traveler.

 

 The Beer Drinker Zodiac

Just as there are many different styles of beer in the world, so too are there many different kinds of beer drinkers, some of whom pair with certain drinking personalities better than others. 

Using a sophisticated algorithm to collect and analyze data from the internet, Beer Syndicate identified and characterized eighteen different beer drinker profiles to help determine not only what profile best describes you, but also which drinking personalities are most and least compatible with your own.

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With that, we present to you:

The Beer Drinker Zodiac


The Optimizer
:

Often familiar with a vast assortment of beer and their respective prices, The Optimizer is constantly searching for the intersection of where maximum quality meets minimum price.  Always a sucker for a good deal, The Optimizer is typically most active during Happy Hour, but can also be seen loading up on boxes of quality marked down beer at the liquor store, and if forced to buy non-discounted beer, will apply a sophisticated quality-to-price per volume formula to guide a beer buying decision.  Not one to overpay, if the price isn’t right, The Optimizer is never afraid to just order water or simply just go drink from their stash at home.

Seek: The Transcender and The Pseudo Connoisseur
Avoid: The Budget Drinker and Captain Ahab

The Adventurer:

The Adventurer is driven by an inner desire to discover and experience new, exciting, exotic, creative or world-class beers, with little mind paid to the cost.  Although at times The Adventurer may receive social recognition and even appear to be bragging when mentioning former beer experiences, attention and status are not the driving motives when it comes time for The Adventurer to make a beer selection.

Seek: Captain Ahab, The Beer Snob and The Box Checker
Avoid: The Old-Timer and The 40 Ouncer

The Carbophobe:

Whether it was the Atkins fad back in the early 2000s or whatever the most updated version of keto happens to be, low-carb diets have been around for a long time and typically cast beer as one of the bad guys.  With every new cycle of low-carb diet comes a new generation of the weight-conscious Carbophobe, who can often be seen asking for the lowest carb beer on the tap list, or simply opting for the patron saint-beer of  low-carb beers, Michelob Ultra.

Seek: The Old-Timer, The Budget Drinker and other Carbophobes
Avoid: The Beer Snob

Captain Ahab:

This beer drinker’s eyes are always fixed on catching the next white whale; that rare beer that was last seen in Shangri-La, Atlantis or somewhere in the Canyon of the Crescent Moon.  Not necessarily driven by bragging rights or attention, the Captain Ahab archetype equates rarity with quality, and is typically motivated by the idea that anything worth having should be a challenge to obtain, price be damned.   

Seek: The Adventurer, The Transcender, and The Beer Snob
Avoid: The Old-Timer and The Budget Drinker

The Transcender:

An advanced nonconformist drink­­er who transcends trends and convention, despite being well aware of them.  A 15% barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout in the middle of a sweltering summer?  That’s their “lawnmower beer”.  A mouth-puckering Lambic paired with a Snickers ice cream bar?  A match made in heaven.  Following their own path and absent of snobbery, this individualistic and enlightened breed might profoundly enjoy a rare Cantillon Fou’ Foune from their private collection while listening to A Tribe Called Quest on Monday, only to slurp down a few cans of Milwaukee’s Best with lime during a game of cornhole on Tuesday.

Seek: The Adventurer, The Optimizer, and Captain Ahab
Avoid: The Pseudo Connoisseur

The Budget Drinker:

A group predominantly comprised of high school and college students, the deciding factor for The Budget Drinker in all beer drinking decisions is cost.  Unlike to The Optimizer, cost, not quality, is the only factor in the equation.  The usual beer suspects are Natty Light, Keystone, and PBR if there’s nothing cheaper.

Seek: The Old-Timer and The Carbophobe
Avoid: The Beer Snob and The Politically Correct Anti-Beer Snob Crusader

The Box Checker:

The Box Checker is concerned with having every beer, craft or otherwise, at least once.  This breed of drinker could be motivated by bragging rights or FOMO, but more often a latent OCD-like desire to “complete the set”.   Although fueled in large part by social drinking apps like Untappd, The Box Checker mentality has existed ever since Adam named all the animals. 

Seek: The Adventurer, Captain Ahab and The Transcender
Avoid: The Loyalist

The Old-Timer:

This group of drinkers solidified their opinion about what beer was long before the craft beer revolution, and therefore anything that doesn’t taste like a fizzy yellow lager, doesn’t “taste like beer” and is therefore to be largely avoided.

Seek: The Carbophobe
Avoid: The Adventurer, The Box Checker and The Beer Snob

The Seasonal Drinker:

The weather typically dictates which beer The Seasonal Drinker will consume in almost OCD-like fashion.  Big rich beers are winter-only, enjoyed preferably fireside.  These very same winter beers are, however, utterly undrinkable by the first day of spring.  Likewise, The Seasonal Drinker is meteorologically tethered when it comes to drinking lighter beers, which are only enjoyable on a hot day, particularly after mowing the lawn— any lawn.

Seek: Other Seasonal Drinkers
Avoid: The Adventurer

The Beer Snob:

Believing their personal tastes and opinions about anything beer-related to be far superior to most if not all other people, for The Beer Snob, beer is simply a means to an end, with the value of any given beer determined by how much it could further elevate The Beer Snob’s own status, or devalue someone else’s status.  The Beer Snob often attempts to seek out positions of authority in the beer world and surround themselves with acolytes who must share the opinions and affirm the status of The Beer Snob, or suffer ridicule.

The Beer Snob will seek out rare, expensive, hyped or otherwise coveted beers for bragging rights, if not also to then subsequently crap on those very same beers, because even the most excellent beer is not safe from the dreaded label of “drain pour” from the ultimate Beer Snob.

Seek: Captain Ahab and The Perma-Hater
Avoid: The Budget Drinker, The 40 Ouncer, and The Politically Correct Anti-Beer Snob Crusader

The Politically Correct Anti-Beer Snob Crusader:

Often equally if not more annoying than The Beer Snob, The Politically Correct Anti-Beer Snob Crusader is the self-appointed, easily triggered, aggressive defender against all threats of beer snobbery, real or imagined.  Like a robot with PTSD and a broken targeting system, practically anyone with an opinion about beer is a potential target of the hypersensitive PC Anti-Beer Snob Crusader and thus subject to bullying under the guise of protecting the innocent and defenseless beer consumer.  Making a considerate beer recommendation to a friend?  Get ready to be labeled a beer snob and blasted with a barrage of demands and platitudes such as “Don’t tell people what to drink! Everyone has a different palate!!!  PEOPLE SHOULD DRINK WHATEVER THEY WANT!!! IT’S JUST BEER!!!  BEER IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!!!

Seek: Other Politically Correct Anti-Beer Snob Crusaders, though be prepared to be labeled a beer snob yourself.
Avoid: The Beer Snob, The Pseudo Connoisseur and especially The 40 Ouncer who might interpret your aggressive outbursts as a threat and subsequently shoot or stab you.

The Pseudo Connoisseur:

This special breed of drinker has a deep-seated psychological drive to be seen as an expert on the subject of beer, if not everything else, despite not actually being an expert on beer or anything else.  Able to impress the casual beer drinker with often half-true or fully made-up beer facts, The Pseudo Connoisseur is all smoke and mirrors and lives by the motto: fake it till you fake it some more and then keep faking it.

Seek: The Trend Chaser
Avoid: The Politically Correct Anti-Beer Snob Crusader

The Perma-Hater:

Even with over 100 different styles of beer presenting a vast assortment of flavors that far outstrip the diversity within the wine world, The Perma-Hater never seems to be pleased with any beer on the market.  While reluctantly willing to try new beers, The Perma-Hater will invariably either hate or barely tolerate anything new, and will often opt for a beer that they’ve had in the past that they hate just slightly less than everything else.  Not necessarily snobbish, The Perma-Hater may just be extremely picky, or is only able to maintain their lifeforce via the power of complaining.

Seek: The Futile Reminiscer and other Perma-Haters
Avoid: Captain Ahab

The Trend Chaser:

From the IPA explosion years back, to the barrel-aged craze, to sours, and back to IPAs (in the form of NEIPAs and Brut IPAs), The Trend Chaser follows the wind of the trend.  Sometimes stemming from a desire to be seen as hip, and sometimes driven by the excitement of wherever the craft beer market seems to be headed, one thing is certain: The Trend Chaser will be fully committed to whatever the current trend is until the next one comes along.

Seek: The Adventurer and The Transcender
Avoid: The Perma-Hater

The Hop-Oholic:

Hop-Oholics come in a few varieties, but all predominately opt for beers with a hop-forward character. The first kind of Hop-Oholic are those who truly appreciate the character of a wide variety of hops, intense bitterness, or some combination of the two.  Next up are those who don’t fundamentally enjoy IPAs, but believe them to be a necessary rite of passage on the beer drinker’s path to a respectably developed palate and thus drink IPAs out of peer pressure or until they’ve convinced themselves that they like them.  And then there are The Hop-Oholics who simply got stuck in the IPA trend years back and never branched out— Sort of like someone who really got into MC Hammer pants in the early 90s, and just stuck with it.

Seek: The Adventurer, The Beer Snob and The Pseudo Connoisseur
Avoid: The 40 Ouncer, The Budget Drinker, and The Old Timer

The Loyalist:

Despite new and innovative breweries popping up all the time, The Loyalist is dedicated to only one brewery or brand and seldom if ever strays.  Although The Loyalist is not necessarily averse to trying new beers of a different brand, any new beer will always be compared to but ultimately never stack up to The Loyalist’s favorite brand.

Seek: Other Loyalists who enjoy your favorite brands.  If your favorite brand(s) disappears, then seek The Futile Reminiscer.
Avoid: The Box Checker and The Adventurer

The Futile Reminiscer:

This drinker fell in love with a particular brand from the past that is no longer available, and try as they might, The Futile Reminiscer will never be as satisfied with any other beer ever again.

Seek: The Perma-Hater and The Adventurer
Avoid: The Politically Correct Anti-Beer Snob Crusader

The 40 Ouncer

Whether slurping down a Mickey’s, Clot 45, St Ides, or the classic OE, this malt liquor loving demographic is primarily comprised of gangsters from the ‘90s and homeless alcoholics.  It is important to note, however, that unlike the ‘90s gangster who may pour a bit of their 40 out for a fallen hommie, the homeless alcoholic will not.

Seek: The Old-Timer and The Budget Drinker
Avoid: The Hop-Oholic and The Adventurer


Hi, I’m D.J. Pander.  I like beer.  I also blog. Follow me on Myspace.

Hypocritical Bud Light Super Bowl Ad Takes Jab at Coors for Using Inferior Ingredient

In recent years, craft beer was the easy target featured in what appear to be Budweiser’s increasingly desperate and misguided Super Bowl attack ads.

A 2015 Budweiser Super Bowl ad collectively mocked and stereotyped craft beer drinkers as hipster-y, fussy, and pretentious nudniks for drinking the likes of “pumpkin peach beer”, while in the same breath Budweiser’s ad self-praised its corporately mass-produced brand for allegedly being brewed “the hard way”, seeming to imply that other breweries (craft or otherwise) were, well, lazy.

Budweiser’s attack ad backfired when the craft beer community pointed out the apparent hypocrisy of Bud’s corporate parent company, AB InBev, for attempting to blast craft drinkers for sipping brews like pumpkin peach beer, while at the same time AB InBev sold pumpkin peach beer from its then recently acquired Elysian Brewing Company.

Still smarting from the rock-to-the-head slingshoted from the craft community, the Eye of Sauron that is Bud has now shifted its gaze to Coors.

In keeping with the now eye-rollingly predictable campy Monty-Python-and-The Holy-Grail theme, Bud Light’s 2019 Super Bowl ad depicts a large wooden barrel of corn syrup being mistakenly delivered to the Budweiser kingdom/brewery. After being advised that the barrel-o-corn syrup must belong to Coors in the ad, ‘King Budweiser’ then benevolently attempts to return the inferior ingredient to the Coors brewery only to learn that Coors already received its shipment, at which point the corn syrup is then rightfully returned to the Coors Light brewery.

The 2019 Bud Light Super Bowl ad finishes by assuring its viewers that Bud Light is “brewed with no corn syrup”, apparently implying that corn syrup is a cheap and/or inferior product.  Here, “inferior” could be meant to imply (wrongly) that corn syrup used in brewing somehow contributes more to obesity when in fact corn sugars are perhaps just as easily, if not more so, converted to alcohol during the fermentation process as rice sugars.

Speaking of which, what Bud’s Super Bowl ad fails to point out is that its own beer (Budweiser and Bud Light), is also brewed with a comparatively cheap adjunct, namely rice.

But not just any rice.  Bud has been reported to be tainted with an experimental and genetically engineered rice strain, according to Greenpeace.

While it’s true that corn-based products have been subsidized by the U.S. government for many years and could therefore be considered “cheap”, so has rice.

Ignoring for the moment the apparent hypocrisy of Bud calling out Coors for being brewed with supposedly inferior adjuncts, it should be noted that many beer styles, including the currently popular IPA, are traditionally brewed with adjuncts, such as corn sugar (in order to increase alcohol content while drying the beer out).

In fact, though it was formerly excluded as a craft brewery due to its large scale, the oldest continually operating brewery in the U.S., Yuenglings (established 1829), was recently reclassified as a craft brewery because it brewed with traditional ingredients, in this case corn.

Adjuncts, such as beet sugar, have been used in the most highly regarded Belgian beers for centuries.

Long story short, adjuncts do not a bad beer make.  And for the most part, when it comes to beer, sugar is sugar, whether it comes from rice, corn, or beets.

So what’s the message to the crack advertising team behind the recent slew of Bud’s Super Bowl misfires?

In the immortal words of Ice Cube: Chickity check yo self before you wreck yo self.

Meanwhile, this writer offers two words of encouragement to Budweiser as it continues to lose market share: 

Dilly dilly.


Author: Hi, I’m D.J. Pander.  I like beer. I also like having a job. Please share if you like.

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