Recently I've bought a couple of chimay's & duvel's that were clearly 'off' - horribly thin and bitter, with no complexity or sweetness. It only seems to be the 330ml bottles that get like this; I've never had a bad magnum.
What causes this, is it fluorescent light? Or age.
Cheers!
I believe it to be age.........I have had several like this and the bottles were old and dusty.
007
Magnum, or 750 ml bottle? They're not the same, FYI.
Mishandling. Depending on the Chimay, it's a beer that does very well with age (the blue/Grande Reserve does the best with age, but the others can evolve nicely with some age on them too if handled correctly).
Fluorescent lighting can damage beer, but if it does, it's going to evidence itself by skunking the beer (which is strictly an odor issue; a lot of people call other problems with beers "skunking" that are actually other problems entirely).
Heat is a major detriment to beer, and that's likely what caused the damage to your beers. Heat hastens staling, can hasten autolosys (essentially, turning yeast into cannibals, which leaves a horrible taste and aroma behind) and has other negative effects. If a shop is keeping these beers on a regular shelf, under bright lights, and rarely moving its stock - which can be seen by the level of dust on the bottles, although dust-free bottles are no guarantee - that's the best way to find bad beer.
-Steve
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