I just re-opened a two liter of Coke Zero that I first opened Wednesday. The bottle was firm and it emitted the tell-tale hiss upon opening that told me it was still carbonated and would taste (almost) as good as when it was first cracked.
As with so many things, this led me to consider beer. With packaging being such an issue for sustainability, why don’t we have beer in a 2-liter? Pour yourself a glass, put the cap back on tightly, and it should keep for days. Well, theoreticaly at least. At my house the beer would not last long enough to truly test the preservative powers of the bottle.
So - have I missed a 2-liter beer option? If not, why has this not been tried?
Beer is not carbonated in the same way as soft drinks.
I think it would be hard to have the beer taste the same after that 2 liter bottle was opened and you waited a few days for the next one. It would most certainly be flat.
The do offer pressurized kegs now - and I think that is a better alternative.
Not all of it, but a good portion of it is force carbonated. Sierra Nevada, for instance, (and at 680,000 barrels a year, I think it’ll qualify as “mass produced,” although it’s not BudMillCoors territory) is bottle conditioned. Old Style (not to be confused with Old Style Pilsener in Canada) has returned to kraeusening its beer, so they seem not to force carbonate anymore. And according to this article, apparently Sam Adams is also krauesened.
Generally, from what I have seen, beer (alcoholic beverages in general?) and plactic containers are not a popular combo, at least as far as the mass market is concerned.
Plastic beer packaging (at least in the USA) seems to be mostly limited to places (concerts, sporting events) where serving glass containers would not be feasible for safety reasons or similar concerns.
Of course all of the above is just my take on the situation, so feel free to tell me how mistaken I am, and how plastic beer bottles are de rigueur in Santiago or Saigon…
Well, there are 40s of budweiser, molson, and various deliciously malted liquors which is what? 1.2 litres, give or take?
I’ve made beer with this kitbefore. It’s premixed wort that you add a yeast pill to, screw on a cap with a little rubber centre (presumably to let excess pressure out), and you leave it on your kitchen counter for two weeks before it becomes beer!
The pictures don’t show it, but I should probably mention that it comes in a 2L bottle essentially the same as a pop bottle.
I’ve gone through a lot of brew pub beer in 2 litre bottles over the years, and it’s been universally okay the second day and not something I would want to drink by the third day. Brown bottles, and everything from pilseners to porters has been the same story.
My local beverage center has available growlers in various sizes including one similar to 2L, as do most micro-brews and brew-houses.
My guess as to why super commercial brands don’t sell this sort of thing at the local supermarket except for the “40s” is that it’s merely a matter of marketing and distribution. Certainly, the things exist. Although, I don’t think ones made out of plastic would work.
My wife won’t drink Coke or Pepsi from two-liter bottles, insisting that it tastes “plastic-y” compared to cans. I can just imagine how she’d react to beer from a plastic bottle.
As I think someone mentioned above, you can still sometimes get plastic beer bottles at places like concerts where they’re concerned that giving people glass bottles would be a safety issue.
