How to tell if a beer is skunked

It's not just the flavors - it's the aroma. A skunked beer has an distinct aroma. It smells, not surprisingly, a bit like the scent from a skunk. It's caused by a mercaptan that's created when the hop oils in the beer are struck by light - and a better term for a "skunked" beer is, in fact, a "light-struck" beer.

Why not find out for yourself? Buy a bottle of beer, like Corona, that's never seen light - say, straight out of a cardboard case. Compare it to another bottle that you leave sitting in the sunlight for a couple of hours.

It has an aroma that reminds one of wet cardboard or newspaper. Some- times, that isn't so bad, like in an aged barley wine. Most of the time, though, it just smells and tastes like something very stale.

It tastes old. Take a beer, store it improperly, and taste for yourself. Also, define "improperly." Too warm, too long, too humid: what?

It's not so much a flavor as a smell. And there's a good reason it's called skunk: it smells just like what you smell when someon's hit a skunk with their car.

Sounds like it may have been astringent, which typically comes from flaws in the brewing process.

It tastes stale. I get a cardboard-like taste out of it. Some compare it to a sherry taste.

Depends on exactly how it was improperly stored. If it was stored in bright light, it can be skunked. If it's stored too hot, it will stale quickly and may just in general taste "beat up." IN really bad cases, the beer can start to get cloudy or even get floating particles from various proteins precipitating out of solution.

-Steve

There are a couple kinds of oxidation. I recall some talk of hot-side aeration (air, containing oxygen, getting into the still-warm wort before fermentation) and post-fermentation oxidation. The former is said to result in that cardboard-y form while the latter can give a sherry-like flavor to beer.

Not necessary to wait even an hour. When this phenomena was first demonstrated to me, a fresh glass of draft beer was set in bright sunlight for a mere 5 mins. The resulting change in aroma was easily discernible.

notbo

So how do you tell if a beer got Skunked before you buy the six-pack??

"Skunking" is strictly from exposure to light (s'why it's also called "light struck"). If the beer you're buying is in green or clear glass, in an open six-pack, in a brightly lit (sunlight or florescent) store, on an open shelf or even behind the glass cooler door, chances are good that it will be, to one degree or another, light struck. There's no way to tell beforehand and good luck returning it to most retailers (who, after all, are responsible for the mis-handling). I try to buy anything in green glass by the sealed case or, when possible, open a closed case and take a six out of it.

Heineken and Molson drinkers will tell you it's all a myth, of course...

Heineken makes the best skunked beer. It's an acquired taste. :-)

Every once in awhile you just gotta' travel to the deep south and search for a south facing 7-11 with beer prominently displayed near the front of the store.

Not too often though... :-)

-Howard

We don't have skunks in the UK (we have skunk weed, but that's a different matter). What do skunks smell like?

JP

Polecats.

schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...

The European way of describing this is usually (tom)cat's pee. More exact is valerian, or the leaf of blackcurrant. Try it out, as someone said. Joris

It's not pee. It's an actual sprayable scent from glands near the base of their tail. The stuff just reeks! There's a couple neighborhood males who have decided a patch near my laundry room door is in contention. I'm about ready to buy a real mean dog!

I guess the obvious answer is "light struck beer"

George Galloway.

Kind of like that.

OK?

Buck