Pasteurized beer

On the wordy label of Ommegang's "Hennepin", you can read that the beer is not pasteurized, and will improve in quality if properly stored for as long as 5 years. Budweiser, on the contrary, makes the amazing claim that its pasteurized beer begins to decline in quality the moment it leaves the brewery (I say "amazing" because surely its quality is already minimal when it is at its freshest.)

However, I wish to ask a few questions of the cognoscenti here.

Do all pasteurized beers say "pasteurized" on the label?

That magnificent head, the foam that can be eaten with knife and fork, can it be produced by pasteurized beer, or is its presence a proof on non-p?

Seems to me that when I drink unpasteurized beer after a while without, I get gas. I assume that this is because the yeast is settling into my gut and providing me with healthful B vitamins. Right? If so, can pasteurized beer make any meaningful contribution to your B-vitamins?

Yeungling's Lord Chesterfield Ale is not pasteurized, right?

Are any good beers pasteurized?

Reply to
gnohmon
Loading thread data ...

A-B are correct. The condition of pasteurized beer does begin to decline as soon as it's packaged.

And, whether you like what they produce or not, Bud does not have minimal quality. It has outstanding quality most craft brewers cannot achieve in their wildest wet dreams - if you define quality as brewing a consistent product that is free from process flaws in brewing, fermentation and packaging. I may prefer most every other beer to Bud, but I've had enough foaming Prima Pils and stale Hop Devils (like the one I just drank tonight, even though my local store just got a new delivery) to know that craft breweries still have a lot to learn on the quality front.

No.

Yes.

No.

(Note, both answers are contingent upon the beer being fresh, and having the right sort of ingredients to produce that sort of head in the first place - plus clean glassware that doesn't kill a head.)

No. If that were the case, your multivitamin would give you gas. It gives you gas because the yeast are generating gas. And it has to go somewhere.

No. I really doubt unpasteurized beer makes any "meaningful" contribution to your B-vitamin intake, either. It contributes some, sure. But not a tremendous amount.

I'm a West Coaster. Ya gots me.

I'm sure there are, although in general I'd say bottle-conditioned beers tend to hold up longer.

Meanwhile, if you flip around the question you can see that pasteurization (or lack thereof) doesn't directly correlate to taste: all keg beer sold in teh States is non-pasteurized. And yet, somehow Bud doesn't magically become a flavorful beer with a head that'll last all night (not that I think head formation is any sign of whether I want to drink a beer or not).

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

Prima and Hop Devil are two of my regular beers AND have a very clear and easy-to-find "Enjoy By" date (i.e., you can still drink it after that, you just won't "enjoy" it, I guess ) on the label (as well as on the case shell). At least the bottles I buy in neighboring NJ do (and I always buy the beer with at least 3 months to go- my last case of PP, bought two weeks ago, said "Dec 01 '05"- and I'm guessing Victory gives their beers only 6 months unlike the Europeans who give it a year). I never get foaming Prima or stale Hop Devil.

Do the bottles that make it the West Coast have the code? I have little respect for brewers who- I guess at the request of distant distributors- conveniently leave off the date code. It's why I don't buy a lot of West Coast beers, except when the first hit the area. It's why I don't buy as much DogfishHead as I like since their 60 Minute and 90 Minute lose a LOT as they sit on the shelf and I can't find a code anywhere.

Yeungling, like most "old line"* breweries, pasteurizes all it's bottled and canned beer. (*Coors and "real draft" beers, which are heavily filtered, being the exception- one that doesn't appreciably improve them, since they weren't much to begin with...).

Back before it's mass regional popularity, the Yeungling Brewery tour was a very casual affair. My first was just my girl friend and I being taken around by a secretary. As we walked through the bottling line, the Yuengling guide offered me a cold Yuengling beer in a 16 ounce deposit bottle right off the line BEFORE it went into the pasteurizer. Was one of the best American light lagers I ever had- BUT I won't say it was due to the lack of pasteurization as it was the environment and ability to "steal" one off the line and walk around drinking it (at 10 am) for the rest of the tour. When we got back to the office, there was a grey-haired guy, still in his overcoat, shell glass of beer in his hand. "Oh," said the secretary, "here's Dick (Yeungling) now." We talked a bit about the lack of Yuengling in NJ (late 70's), etc. Lemme guess- that doesn't happen on a A-B tour.

Reply to
jesskidden

Pasteurizing hurts the taste of any product in my opinion. Here is how Pabst used to do it: cans pasteurized the most, six pack bottles a little less, case bottles just a tad, kegs not at all.

I happen to know of a micro that went to flash pasteurizing their bottles. I don't drink it anymore as I think the taste took a hit.

Reply to
Dan

I used to give people crap for complaining about Victory's bottling issues, but I've had far too many cases of both of these syndromes over the last year or so - plus some cases a few years ago, when I picked up bottles in PA during a roadtrip - to dismiss them out of hand. (BTW, the current stale Hop Devil has a best by date of November something 2005.)

I don't mean to pick on Victory. I just cited them as a well-regarded brewery (rightly so) who has quality issues of their own, depending on what measures of quality one wants to point to. And there are plenty of other craft breweries who have far worse problems with things like consistency, bottling, etc.

Yep. At least the recent ones do.

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

Yeah, all of Yuengling's bottled/canned beers are pasteurized.

Not all keg beer sold in the States in non-pasteurized. There are a few micros that do flash-pasteurization of their draft beer for their own reasons, and don't talk much about it...for their own reasons.

Reply to
Lew Bryson

Hey Lew,

That was another great The Buzz you wrote in the latest Occasional Pint that I got. I guess I better stay away from the taps at the local Old Chicago or I'll never go there. lol

Take care.

Reply to
Bill Becker

Gotta be good or it just isn't worth it, Bill! Thanks!

Reply to
Lew Bryson

Well, damn. Learn something new every day, etc.

Care to talk about the breweries that don't talk much about it?

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

seriously (using hi-tech equipment to reduce oxidation, etc). I thought that they were (pretty successfully) trying to approach AB's levels of control over the brewing & packaging processes, but with a craft-brewers eye/tastebud for brewing a worthwhile beer in the first place.

I believe what you say, but it's odd & sad to hear, given the money & effort they have put towards avoiding these problems.

Personally, so far I've never met a Victory I didn't like - had the keg cask & bottle HopDevil, & I think bottled prima in PA a few years back & GoldenMonkey & HopDevil again in bottle, over here (UK) last year.

Have you tried a wee complaint email? cheers Mike McG

Reply to
MikeMcG

Only one I remember is Anchor; one of the larger midwest micros, but I can't remember which one...Summit? Maybe? Sorry, it was over five years ago. I talked to a guy who sold flash-pasteurization systems, and he was a bloody fanatic about it, essentially saying that American brewers were insane to ship unpasteurized beer. I've talked to a former Paulaner brewer who said the brewery staff does regular blind taste tests of unpasteurized and flash-pasteurized Paulaner, and pretty much always cannot tell the difference.

Reply to
Lew Bryson

Whatever they're doing, it ain't workin'. I've had sour Paulaner Maerzen (from bottles).

Reply to
Joel

Haven't had any Paulaner bottles lately, but did have a few drafts last week, all good. Which proves...

Reply to
Lew Bryson

I hadn't heard that they were at that level, and frankly I'd be surprised if that were the case. Justified or not, there have been rumblings about Victory's bottling quality issues for years. I used to dismiss it. But in the last year or so, it's become damn tough to find Victory bottles out here in California that don't have some sort of flaw. That could mean poor handling by distributors (it's not at the retailer level, because I've had this from multiple retailers who take good care of their beer), or problems in transport. But I'm not positive that's the case, when you're getting stale or gushy beer three months before its six-month expiry date. (I believe Victory only date on a six month scale, but I'm not positive.)

It is surprising, yes, because I do know they've invested a lot in the bottling side of things in recent years. But it appears they still have work to go (although they do seem to have made huge strides witht he corked bottles after the problem with the first run of extrememly gushy - and maybe even exploding, I don't recall for sure, but I seem to recall hearing of cases - V10; the corked V12 has held up nicely, and Golden Monkey seems to as well).

Eh, I suppose I should. I've met Bill and Jim, and they're nice guys, and I hate to sound like a whiner, but I know they'd also want to know about issues.

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

I think you confuse quality and taste. A-B has some of the best quality control in the brewing industry, and as a result turn out a completly consistent product. I find that the taste is not pleasing, but not at all the same thing. The so-called "born on date" should really be called the "died on date," because that's when the yeast died and the taste started going downhill.

The English term "Real Beer" (or "Real Ale") usually means bottle or cask conditioned, with the fermentation which produces the carbonation happening in the container used to deliver the product to the end user.

If the yeast is killed by pasteurization or removed by filtration then the carbonation is done by injection of CO2.

From the old Schultz and Dooley commercials: Brew me no brew with artificial bubbles thoses carbonated beers of today 'cause Utica Club will still take the trouble to make beer the natural way

I have to say that UC didn't ever impress me with having better flavor, but I approve the practice completely. Feel free to offer contrasting opions on that.

Reply to
Bill Davidsen

In the large US breweries, beer is pasteurized after the fully carbonated beer in sealed inside the bottle or can. The fact that a bottled/canned beer is pasteurized doesn't imply artificial carbonation.

Utica Club was referred to the fact that their beer was naturally carbonated ("Krausened"), something a number of large US brewers (Schaefer, Heileman, etc.) have used as a selling point and it's a safe guess that the vast majority of those beers, when canned or bottled, were pastuerized as well (save for their "real draft" brews, which were filtered). Most of those breweries probably "adjusted" the carbonation at times with an extra injection of CO2 when needed. Even those brewers who artificially carbonate their beers get the CO2 for free, since it's a by-product of the fermentation process- easier to collect and save it, that buy it.

Reply to
jesskidden

So many excellent and informative answers!

Thanks to all.

Reply to
gnohmon

DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.