I know there’s a few beer experimenters here, like the Brulosophy guy. Here’s one I would like to see done.
As I have gone on multiple day river float trips into remote country over the years, one trick I learned is to take a case of factory beer, freeze it, line the cans on the bottom of the cooler. They keep the cooler cold, and when they finally thaw on Day 4 or 5 you have cold beer to drink! I can’t say I have ever detected much of a flavor or carbonation difference between a can of fresh vs. previously frozen PBR.
Now that craft beer has started to can their product, does the same stay true for it? I can say that with factory beer, you might get a couple of outliers in a frozen case that will burst or bulge, but at least 90% of them are fine. Craft brewers use smaller canning systems, so i don’t know about them. And what about taste? How about the screw top cans?
Please someone conduct this research as my freezer is too full of game at the present time.
Ya know, I’d be willing to undertake this. So, what is the exact question you want answered? Is the frozen beer still in good shape to drink? Does the frozen beer taste the same as an unfrozen beer? Gotta know so we can eliminate any variables other than the one we’re testing. 2 that I can think of…do different canning systems from different small breweries matter? And if it’s comparing frozen to unfrozen, then will simply refrigerating the unfrozen one be good enough?
I would be a bit leery about freezing beer since frozen liquid takes up about 10% more volume than unfrozen liquids and cans are filled to the top so that they can seal on foam to keep the oxygen out. You could end up with quite a mess. If you haven’t had this problem, I would say you are lucky.
Just my .02
Long, long ago, a guy from a place I once worked at and some of his buddies rolled through the office on a Friday night and tossed a couple of sixers of cans into the freezer of the break room fridge to chill, while he proceeded to get something he’d left at his desk, or one of them made a pit stop… exactly why they were there was never reliably reconstructed. Anyhoo, first in on Monday morning opened the freezer to find it filled with a giant Busch Slushie…
Coors light has a can/bottle with a wider cap-Does this make a difference? There’s also the resealable crowler for a more craft centric approach. Denny, I can’t overstate the importance of this research.
I may not be one of your huckleberries on this, but I am eager to hear the results, in part because two things pop into mind: Big Beer’s ice stabilization process would suggest that freezing can have some significant effect on beer. OTOH, it is (or at least was, don’t know if it survived the sale to InBev) a longstanding practice at AB to freeze cans of Budweiser in liquid nitrogen. They are (were) to be opened at intervals of 5, 10, etc. years, and compared by taste panels with current product, to ensure there is no drift over time – which clearly assumes there would be no effect from freezing. I wonder if craft beer which has been previously subjected to less stabilization processing (lagering, adsorbent treatments, filtration, etc.) would be more affected. (If I do decide to participate there will be a drip tray under my freezer shelf.)
Yeah, I know this is just about keeping your camping trip lubricated without ruining everything in your canoe. A worthy experiment. But the Bigs do have two seemingly contradictory practices going here. As a side benefit you can show if one or both is pure bunk and they ain’t so smart after all. Don’t miss a chance to stick it to The Man, Denny! [emoji6]
Yes to all of those. Maybe its two experiments? The taste of frozen vs. unfrozen beer. That should be easy. Freeze one, refrigerate the other, unthaw the frozen, serve at the same temperature.
The question of whether microbrew canning systems are similar to each other or the big boys is more difficult. I have had excellent luck freezing PBR and Rainier cans. Sounds like Busch cans may be a bit flimsier. Plus, canning can change frequently. I know the Lewis & Clark brewery are on their third canning system as they have expanded through the year. I think an experiment to evaluate how well microbrew cans would require a minimum of freezing a six pack of each can type.
If you do the former, Denny…thanks! That would be useful information.
Back to screw tops. The ones I am familiar with are the Coors type. At least one brewery here in Montana, the Philipsburg brewery, uses the same kind. I keep the empties, and fill them with homebrew when I go on raft trips. Much more convenient than lugging growlers and glasses.
Seriously doubt it. I’m sure the bigs are all the same. Maybe there are factors in how long it’s kept in the freezer or how the cans have been (mis)handled beforehand that affect the risk of bursting.
Something to add to my original post on freezing beer. When liquids turn to ice the expansion in volume exerts a lot more pressure per square inch on the vessel trying to contain it. When water freezes in copper pipes, the expansion can rupture the pipe which has walls that are a lot thicker than a beer can. I would avoid the possibilities of a big mess and buy a good cool;er and a bag of ice (I have a cooler here that will keep things cold and still have ice in it a day after filling it). You will also eliminate the possibility of reaching into the cooler and possibly cutting you hand on a can that has ruptured.
Hope to see a lot of you in Providence next week!
.
Have you considered throwing a puck of dry ice wrapped in insulation in your cooler? With a good cooler it should last a while. Insulation is to keep it from freezing everything (Accidentally froze some beer & jello shots on a float trip).
Yes, I have used dry ice. The problem on a 4 day float trip is that cooler space is at a premium. Frozen cans of beer serve the purpose and can be consumed, unlike dry ice and insulation.
Some guys on our permit a few years back floating the Middle Fork of the Salmon River (5-day float) did that, and I remember him telling me that in freezing lots of beer in cans that they had some kind of intermediate step so that they froze more slowly than quickly. IIRC, he said that freezing a few cases so that the thermal mass changed more slowly as the chest freezer worked up to freezing all of it, is how they did it to keep cans from bursting. Or started the freeze, took them out, put them back in to finish the freeze. And oddly enough I think it was PBR.