OTHER NEWS

QUESTIONS YOU ALWAYS WANTED ANSWERED

NEW SCIENTIST - There are two advertisements for lager running on
British TV at the moment. The first, for American brand Budweiser,
suggests that the key to good lager is fast shipment from brewery to
bottle to drinker. It says fresh lager tastes better. The second, for
Dutch beer Grolsch, makes exactly the opposite claim. It stresses the
importance of a long conditioning period to improve flavour before the
beer is bottled. Which will produce a better beer and why?

. . . All true lagers are aged before consumption. Lager in fact comes
from the German word meaning to store. After fermentation, the beer
undergoes a storage - or lagering - process at low temperature to allow
the beer to mature and take on the distinctive clean taste for which
lagers are famous. Lagering takes from one week to more than six months
depending on the style. I suspect that both Budweiser and Grolsch
undergo this process. In general European lagers tend to be more complex
than American lagers, which are usually lighter and less intricate in
style. Because a complex beer will gain more from lengthy lagering,
European lagers tend to be matured for longer than American ones. After
lagering the beer is bottled. Once bottled the beer can spoil easily
through exposure to light, oxygen or high temperatures. Fast shipping
and sale minimizes the chance of beer spoilage. So in short, both claims
are correct. A lager needs to be matured to develop the correct flavors,
and fast shipping, once matured, is important. As for which brand is
best, that is a matter of personal taste. -
Dave Martin Hornsby Heights, New South Wales, Australia

. . . Bottling is traumatic to beer. It is filtered, pumped, packaged
and pasteurized. Some contamination with oxygen is unavoidable, and this
immediately gets to work on the compounds in the beer, starting a
process of deterioration. In conclusion, mature it slowly and at length
to get a good flavor and then get it into the drinker as fast as
possible before it deteriorates. A reasonably good taster can
distinguish between a week-old and a month-old bottle from the same
batch. - David Cefai, San Gwann, Malta

. . . After pasteurization, beer is essentially defenceless against
degradation. Any temperature swings between the brewery and consumption
spoil the taste. Even worse, compounds known as alpha acids from the
hops are light-sensitive - photons break down the isohumulones in the
liquid, creating 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, which gives the beer a
skunky smell and taste. And yes, it really is the same compound found in
skunk spray. Brown bottles slow this process, but clear and green
bottles provide almost no protection - Ron Dippold, Brewer, San Diego,
California, US

http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=mg18925342.200