I always revisit during the course of evaluating a beer in judging. If nothing else, temperature alone can change things (or allow things to be perceived more readily). My comments typically include “initial notes perceived”, “later hints picked up as the sample warms”, “final aromas presenting themselves late”, etc…to me this is as important as low, medium and high perceptions. it also tells the brewer that I wasn’t giving it a mere “drive by” or “quicky” analysis. A good judge told me once that competitions won’t survive unless you give the brewers something for their money, even if they don’t place an entry. I still write explanatory comments on the NHC “check the box” form, also, for this reason.
How much protection does a brown bottle provide? Could you leave a beer in the sun for hours in a brown bottle without getting the skunked taste?
My experience says no, you couldn’t. Brown glass provides some protection, but there’s a limit.
Brown glass only protects partially from artificial light indoors. Against strong sunlight, it doesn’t stand a chance for very long.
From my personal experience, a 20-minute or so sitting in full sun on the way home in the cab of my pickup resulted in noticeable skunking.
Carrying brown bottles from the shop to the truck/truck to inside in direct sun? No issues.
I think that’s kinda the benefit of brown. It’ll protect from skunking for the unavoidable parts of transit, but keep it in the shade.
This is why whenever I drop off entries for a competition, I ALWAYS put them inside of a sealed box so no light can reach them. Sometimes those entries sit for awhile at those locations before being picked up.
+1; Same goes for a poured beer while hanging outside. I get serious skunkiness by the end of the beer if it is bright outside!
Good point. I use a shield around glasses and pitchers when served outside (a simple Koozie for the glass and a neoprene growler insulator for the pitchers. Skunk free!
I believe I read somewhere that the issue is blocking UV so no matter how dark the glass is some will still get through (behaves differently from visible light).
Don’t quote me on actually numbers, but I feel like I read somewhere that clear glass of course blocks 0%, green glass blocks 30ish% (maybe as high as 50?) and brown glass is like 90%. That sounds like a lot, but as quickly as those oxidation reactions occur that 10% is gonna do some damage given enough exposure time. So it slows the exposure for certain, but can’t block it.
What does block 100%… an aluminum can. (Yes, very difficult for homebrewers but part of the reason why so many craft brewers are switching to cans.
Which is a shame, because most canned craft beer is good and stale pretty fast. Even canned Sierra Nevada beers suffer from staling faster than the bottled versions.
I’m back to buying 100% bottles, only cans I buy are from European breweries.
I know one of the issues with cans is increased dissolved oxygen, since the can top is completely open for the short time between filler and capper (same with bottles, but it’s a much smaller opening). Especially small can lines (we have a 4 head Wild Goose) can really struggle with it. I think as the industry grows people will get it more dialed in. We’ve gotten ours very low (<50 ppb). A lot of microbreweries don’t even check DOs. Mobile can lines (in my experience both commercial and homebrew) are awful, so the places that are draft only and then do a one off can run I can understand why that wouldn’t be very good.
Other than oxidation I can’t think of anything that would affect canned beer, is that what you mean by staling?
That explains it about brown bottles. Reminds me of buddy’s transport truck with blue ox towing to get his bottles delivered on more than an hour travel.