BeerSci: Never Drink Beer From A Clear Glass Bottle

[Golden Spur]

BeerSci: Why You Should Never Drink Beer From A Clear Glass Bottle | Popular Science

Skunked beer smells just how it sounds: You crack open a bottle and an unmistakeably mustelid pong hits your nostrils. This can happen in any beer, but skunking seems most prominent in lagers due to their otherwise-mellow aroma profiles. Further, many of these self-same lagers (think Corona, Heineken, etc) are also shipped in clear or light green bottles.
The industry term for skunking is "lightstruck," and it's a beer fault that has been written about since about 1875. By the 1960s, scientists had narrowed the culprits down to a triple-threat of hops, a sulfur compound and a molecule known as a flavin. But despite more than a hundred years in the literature, the mechanism and chemical reactions that caused skunking were only elucidated in 2001 with the paper Mechanism for Formation of the Lightstruck Flavor in Beer Revealed by Time-Resolved Electron Paramagnetic Resonance by Burns et al. in Chemistry--A European Journal. In it, researchers used a special kind of spectroscopy, the aforementioned time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance (TREPR), to look at how certain compounds in beer behaved as they were irradiated with light. TREPR is similar to what happens when you get an MRI, except that in MRI the technician is looking for the spins of atomic nuclei, while TREPR is looking for spins of unpaired electrons. This is important because most photochemical reactions, at some point in the pathway, create unpaired electrons. Following where those go, and to which molecules they are attached, is key to understanding the entire reaction mechanism.
What those researchers found is that there are two distinct pathways to getting skunky-smelling compounds in your beer. The two main actors is this tale of woe: hop alpha acids and light. Not heat. Not oxygen. Light.

 

[bamabear82]

I drink Corona or Land Shark quite a bit and can't say I've ever got a skunky one that I recall.

 

[Gatorchip]

Another thing to consider is to drink unfiltered beers. The yeast keeps beers lasting for years... like wine. Depending on the style, the beer will improve with time.

 

[thecrow124]

Another thing to consider drink from a can, all the best beer comes in cans.

 

[24seven]

Damn. I better go get rid of that Bud lime that someone left in my fridge.

 

[fordman84]

I drink Corona or Land Shark quite a bit and can't say I've ever got a skunky one that I recall.

I like Land Shark. DId you know, landshark is magic?

Had a party once and some chick opened one and didn't drink hardly any of it. Rather than pour it out my roomate at the time put it in the fridge. No lid, no silver spoon or anything like that, and the next morning when looking for a hair of the dog I pulled it out of the fridge. Son of a gun wasn't even close to flat.


It was a miracle

 

[bamabear82]

I like Land Shark. DId you know, landshark is magic?

Had a party once and some chick opened one and didn't drink hardly any of it. Rather than pour it out my roomate at the time put it in the fridge. No lid, no silver spoon or anything like that, and the next morning when looking for a hair of the dog I pulled it out of the fridge. Son of a gun wasn't even close to flat.


It was a miracle

I knew it was special.

 

[bamabear82]

Another thing to consider drink from a can, all the best beer comes in cans.

Nope, don't like drinking out of cans. Hell, I don't even like drinking out of plastic cups. Ima glass man.

 

[beardown07]

inb4 beer snobs say,

 

[fordman84]

Nope, don't like drinking out of cans. Hell, I don't even like drinking out of plastic cups. Ima glass man.

One look at your avy and everyone should know that.

 

[beardown07]

After the first few, I'd drink out of a boot, if it were the only choice.

 

[The Crimson King]

I like Land Shark. DId you know, landshark is magic?

Had a party once and some chick opened one and didn't drink hardly any of it. Rather than pour it out my roomate at the time put it in the fridge. No lid, no silver spoon or anything like that, and the next morning when looking for a hair of the dog I pulled it out of the fridge. Son of a gun wasn't even close to flat.


It was a miracle

most beer doesn't go flat overnight in the fridge........I'm an expert

 

[bamabear82]

One look at your avy and everyone should know that.

 

[The Crimson King]

I guess they do sell natural light in bottles......redneck

 

[bamabear82]

I guess they do sell natural light in bottles......redneck

Natty Light? LOL @ thinking I'm that classy. SEC!

 

[The Crimson King]

Natty Light? LOL @ thinking I'm that classy. SEC!

 

[UTVolCountry]

Natty Light iz usually all I drinks. Cans or bottles.

 

[BritishDolfan]

I drink Corona or Land Shark quite a bit and can't say I've ever got a skunky one that I recall.

Same here (well, with Corona anyway).

 

[UTVolCountry]

I've never had Corona before but I want to try it

 

[Darkstone42]

BeerSci: Why You Should Never Drink Beer From A Clear Glass Bottle | Popular Science

Most beers which come in clear glass bottles are lagers or lager-brewed ales, which means they are almost certainly stored refrigerated. Unless you leave your refrigerator door open all the time, the beers will likely not skunk because there is still no light getting to them.

A beer distributor/liquor store with employees who know what they're doing will take this under advisement when stocking the shelves, as well, to limit the amount of light the beer is exposed to, be it by not putting many on the shelves at once, keeping them in lower-light regions of the store, or selling them in boxes/cases which block out light. If your beer in a clear or green bottle skunks, it's likely either your fault or the fault of the distributor.

But obviously the risk is reduced by using a brown bottle or eliminated entirely if the beer is canned, so it's just a question at that point of whether or not it is cost-effective to take that extra measure.

In any case, lagers, pilsners, and other cold-stored beers are the only styles which can be reasonably accommodated in clear or green bottles, and in my experience, those are the only styles which are found in clear or green bottles.

Nope, don't like drinking out of cans. Hell, I don't even like drinking out of plastic cups. Ima glass man.

Pour the beer out of the can and into a glass then.