GREEN (bottled) BEER! AAARGGHHH!

[fretlessman71]

Can someone explain to me why even some of the best breweries out there insist on using a green (or worse yet, a clear) bottle? Are they really all about sales? After all, this seems to be the only real reason to sell their beer in such a vessel. They can't really believe that the effect of the light IMPROVES their beer, can they? If a company purports itself to be concerned with taste and nothing else, doesn't it seem silly for them not to use a brown bottle? I just don't get it....

To this day, I have (sadly) not had a bottle of Samuel Smith's that I really liked. All of the liquor stores I've been to have these REALLY BRIGHT FLUORESCENT LIGHTS that make you feel like you're about to be operated on. Consequently, the beer gets ruined. I've tried to tell myself that it was just my imagination, but either I'm unsuccessful in retraining my mind or the beer has been ruined. What am I to do?

[Redbird Fan]

I don't recall green bottles having the same "UV issues" clear bottles have. Is this true?

[fretlessman71]

Open a bottle of Heineken, have a whiff, and tell me what animal it reminds YOU of. :rolleyes:

[Theakston]

I have read that commercial brewers use chemicals to prevent the skunkiness from occuring so much. Having said that perhaps you'd rather take the skunkiness over the chemicals!

It really beats me why Sam Smiths sell their stuff in clear bottles. If they do add chemicals, that kind of contradicts their stance on organic, natural beer doesn't it?

Also nearly all beer brewed under the bavarian purity law comes in green bottles so.....presumably they wouldn't be allowed to add such chemicals.

Anyone else heard of this?

I think I read it in one of David Lane's home brewing books.

[Redbird Fan]

it's true Heineken has a skunky smell - and taste - but are you sure it's not just a "skunky beer?" I don't think Heineken's green bottles are playing a role in that.

[fretlessman71]

Go get ANY green bottled beer and it happens. Even Pilsner Urquell smells like that! I had to acclimate to the odor and "turn off" that part of my brain before I was able to drink it. Mickey's Malt Liquor is famous for it; so is Moosehead, Dos Equis, and so on, and so on. PROMISE.

To quote George de Piro:
Light is the cause of one of the most common stale beer characteristics: skunking. When visible light (the kind that can be detected by the human eye) strikes beer, it reacts with the chemicals from the hops, rearranging them into the exact compound that skunks spray! Clear and green bottles offer no protection from the damaging wavelengths of visible light, and brown bottles offer only limited protection. That is why many popular import beers, packaged in green or clear glass, are skunked. Ultra Violet (UV) light is not as troubling to the beer, because glass is very opaque to UV light.

You can read the entire article of his at http://www.evansale.com/fresh_beer_article.html

[Redbird Fan]

point taken. I am fully aware of the damaging effects of light and beer (i.e. clear bottles) - I simply did not remember green bottles being in the same category of beer "no-no's" as clear bottles.

It's worth noting there are many other beers which present a "skunky" attribute and are not packaged in green glass (or clear). I suspect it's more the style of beer, than the effects of light (although I will concede the effects of light on beer can effect beer with this skunky attribute). If this was not the case, it would be difficult to explain the skunky attribute to many of the beer you've mentioned when delivered as a draught.

just my 2 beer caps worth......

[fretlessman71]

I think there are even a few brown bottled imports that have the skunk flavor to them, just because they've been sitting around in the light for so long. I had a Murphy's Red just the other night, and it had a little bit of the skunk scent to it. I'm beginning to associate the flavor with something that for whatever reason got spoiled. I just can't bring myself to believe that brewers are trying to get that INTO their beer, you know? If you left a keg of anything out in the trunk of your car for a week in July, chilled it, tapped it and had a pint, what do you think it would taste like? My guess is you'd get the skunk, if you didn't get the cardboard thing.

It's a shame that too many brewers are more concerned with sales than taste; many studies have shown that the green bottled beer sells better than the brown, and the clear sells better than all of them. YUCK.

[Redbird Fan]

I had Murphy's red the other week and I had to poor it out - the skunkness of that brew is really bad, so I hear ya on the whole skunk thing.

[steveh]

I duped this from a post I just left at the Light Bodied/Color Beer thread:

Okay, I took one for the team last night - one of my friends had left a bottle of Heineken in my cooler after a fishing excursion last weekend - it had been in my fridge until last night. I capped and poured it into a 1/2 liter, tall, German made glass - still as cold as the fridge, so not the suggested temp on the bottle (if Heinies even does that anymore). Took a huge wiff from the glass - no skunk. 'Course, no malt or hops either - but that didn't surprise me. I drank about half the 12 ounces, got bored and opened a Dinkel - no skunk there either. Dunno - maybe yer gettin' old beer?

S.

[b3s]

in the grand spectrum of things, clear bottles are the worst, green second, cobalt, third, and brown last. i think i read somewhere that the uv spectrum that causes skunky beer was best deterred by brown, then cobalt bottles and that green bottles were about as useless as clear ones. otoh, green bottles look cool :)