I'm about to crack open a forty-ouncer of Colt .45 (yeah that's right, the truly topknotch stuff), and I remembered a friend telling me that almost all beer is delivered warm to the stores, quickstops, etc. He said there's no reason for them to spend the money keeping it cold throughout the whole journey from the breweries, that it's only when it's about to be sold that they coll it down. Is hat true?
Yes. Even the best beers are stored at room temps. One exception was (is?) original Coors. The original Coors was not pasturized so the company kept it under refrigeration from canning to delivery. Even their trucks were refrigerated. Now, what the retailer did after delivery is another thing. I've seen many supermarkets stockpile large displays just before a major summer holiday or the superbowl and let the beer sit at rooms temps. I do not know if Coors still refrigerates their beer or not.
As for your Colt 45, yes, it is left at room temps till ready for sale. After beer is bottled/canned, the enemy is not heat, but light. Sunlight and UV light from fluorescent bulbs can "skunk" beer. Google for "light struck" beer for more info.
nb
Corona.
Apparently Coors still refrigerated its beer as recently as 1993...
Exel Logistics completes Coors satellite warehouse - Exel Logistic Inc.; Adolph Coors Co
Modern Brewery Age, Sept 6, 1993 Exel Logistics North America recently opened a 90,000-sq. ft. dedicated distribution center for the Coors Brewing Co. of Golden, CO. It is Coors' largest satellite warehouse in the U.S.
The distribution center is a warehouse retrofitted with refrigeration systems that keep Coors products at 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to a spokesperson for Exel, 336 million pounds of Coors products will move through the center annually.
"Coors, unpasteurized, unsanitized, ununionized", read the bumper sticker.
Leave the union politics out of it. Not relevant.
nb
I see no polly-ticks here; the bumpersticker is saying it's ionized.
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:14:44 -0800, Bill Bonde wrote (in article ):
Who want re-ionized beer?
The OP was talking about "even the best beers" so I fail to see how Coors enters into things.
John
There are several other beers that SHOULD be refrigerated according to the label and/or the brewery, but it's often ignored.
From Anchor's FAQ
"...we require all of our distributors, national and international, to refrigerate our products during transport from the brewery to the warehouse. It is a very important consideration; many distributors find this to be either impossible or too expensive for them. As a result, this requirement has limited our choice of distributors."
A number of micros request it as well. In my area, one of the better NJ micros, Climax, only bottles in 1/2 gallon growlers, unpasteurized, but are often found on the "warm" shelf- even tho' they self-distribute and you'd think the retailer would follow their wishes.
Sadly, too many beer retailers, both good and bad, are more worried about an impressive display of beers on their shelves, rather than storing beer correctly. All those clear and green bottled beer sitting in the bright fluorescent light always brings a tear to my eye...
To refer to it as 'beer' on the label seems to be violating the truth in advertising laws.
Glenn D.
It was highly prized in Omaha. We used to make the 500 mile run to Denver _just_ to get a case of Coors! You could sell some to cover the cost of your trip. This was before they went to a national distribution model. I normally pretty much only drank PBR in long-neck returnables, by the case, cost before deposit was ~$4.00. I understand that you can't hardly get a six-pack for that now.
Bill
Too true. Fortunately, the little mini-mart around the corner that carries my favorite IPA (by request) shelves it next to the only blown flourescent bulb in the cold case (again, by request) and has agreed not to replace the bulb (you guessed it!). You just gotta patronize a store like that, even if they do charge a buck extra. ;)
nb
Most beer is pasteurized so that it doesn't care what temperature it is shipped at. It DOES react to light, so an opaque box and a brown bottle are important.
When I was growing up, Coors was unpasteurized and made a big deal of having to be refrigerated at all steps of the way. I don't know whether that was all marketing hype or indeed relevant.
Pretty sure that most of the good home-brewed beer in the history of the world has been stored no cooler than cellar temperature.
Dana
Yeah (well, so has a lot of the bad, infected homebrew) but railroad box cars and tractor trailers don't have cellars...
I really don't think old Louie Pasteur was part of the massive macrobrewery conspiracy to ruin beer in this country.
Now, one could say with modern advances in refrigeration (pioneered by A-B), shipping, filtering and computer controlled inventory, there's no reason that packaged beer in the US couldn't all be bottled-conditioned and non-pasteurized-
---well, except for cost and customer expectations for some 95+% of the market...
That's wrong. Any one of dozens of staling reactions happen faster at warmer temperatures. Keeping beer cold is the best way to slow the staling that starts the instant that beer is packaged.
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