Malcolm Forbes at UNC has published on that:
“Mechanism for Formation of the Lightstruck Flavor in Beer Revealed by Time–Resolved Electron Paramagnetic Resonance”, Colin S. Burns, Arne Heyerick, Denis De Keukeleire,and Malcolm D. E. Forbes, Chemistry—A European Journal 2001, 7, 4553–4561.
Light is bad for beer and brown bottles absorb light better than green or clear ones.
cs
Since not everyone knows the specific column you are referring to, especially if it isn’t published yet, it’s always a good idea to reveal it to us when starting a thread.
Here ya go. Now go have a beer, in the interest of science, of course.
In the interest of pedantry, I’d like to pick a nit:
I assume that Cecil’s referring to Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch, which is made with Kopi Luwak; coffee famous for being consumed by civets before people. My point is that there’s no civet feces in the (brewed) coffee, thus there couldn’t be any in the beer.
While the comment may have been no joke, I have to chalk it up to poetic license.
I’d like to pedantically pick a nit right back.
Even though the coffee beans are, of course, thoroughly washed before use, I submit that, having passed through and subsequently been discharged from the civet’s intestines, the beans themselves are, by definition, feces. The brewed coffe, ipso facto, has feces in it.
Look, if you’re going to be like that then I’m going to have to admit that you’re right. Point goes to you and Cecil.
What? This is the Internet! You can’t acquiesce that quickly! Where’s the fun in that?
You’re both acting like Nazis!
Why, there is none to be had, of course. I try to only fight when I think I can win. This tactic has the nice side effect of a reputation for winning fights I start.
It looks like I have some time to go before I can take Cecil. Fortunately I’m still learning and there’s plenty of ignorance to go around. Is it still true that if I win I get to claim his column and assistants as my own?
Now that’s a good argument, but you know who used to run around calling everyone Nazis?
*Dear Cecil
I saw on the news that Lestrade’s body was found dumped in the desert somewhere. How can I not end up like him?
Cecil replies:
…*
Stalin?
Not a beer-drinker myself, but if light is such a problem, and cans are unpopular, why not use opaque glass bottles to begin with?
I’m sure such things exist, or that major beverage corporations could create them.
If it’s because people like to see how much is left in the bottle when they’re drinking, I’m sure some clever viewing-slit or strip could be designed.
I envision a marketing bonanza that rivals the multi-blade razor wars!
Just curious.
For one thing, if they made the bottles opaque then frat boys would be trying to slip a roofie into the beer of every woman in the bar.
I’ve seen Coca-Cola in opaque bottles and there are several others as well. Definitely being made, but folks make enough of a mess peeling labels with their thumbnail. Just think of the noise and mess from everyone scraping paint.
I seem to recall seeing a beer in a white bottle. Is it Grolsch?
Possibly Gulden Draak.
In a past life I headed up the marketing department for beverage company (juice, not beer unfortunately) and the reason there are not more opaque bottles is around concerns of production contamination. Glass bottled beverages need to be easily inspected for glass contamination.
Specifically unique to glass bottles, is chipped glass pieces, from the top lip of the bottle falling into the bottle. This was usually caused by filler heads hitting the top of the bottle incorrectly. Although very rare, it was the most common contamination we had. It was easy to pull bottles off the line, out of the warehouse or even in a store’s back room if the product made it to retail, and look at them against a bright light for a glass piece. If you used opaque bottles, you would basically have to write off (recall and destroy) the entire production run since there was no way to spot a glass chip inside an opaque glass bottle (remember: the chipped top lip is hidden under the lid). If product had made it to stores, that could cost millions in recalled product & free replacements to retailers.
Although I never considered opaque glass, I did consider the “wrap-around” plastic sleeves, where the entire sleeve is artwork. They look great, but you almost never see them on glass bottles, usually only plastic bottles for the reason I mention above.
Opaque bottles are usually found on more unique products with smaller production runs. If there is a contamination problem, a recall would not be as big a deal since there is far less product, sold at far fewer locations.
Gary
Conclusion 3: So drink it faster, already!
The new aluminum bottles are another solution. I’ve bought beer in them and they work well. I get the impression they are double walled for insulating. Beer stays very, very cold in them. I’d buy them in these bottles all the time if they get the price equal to regular cans.
http://www.brobible.com/files/images/buzz/aluminum%20bottle.jpg
A study conducted by engineering science students at Loyola College in Maryland suggested that the liquid content of aluminium bottles stays slightly colder than the liquid content of glass bottles when allowed to warm at room temperature.[2] These results were not corroborated by a 2005 study at Bucknell University, which found that “the fluid in the aluminium bottle cools much faster than the glass bottle, and once removed from a cold source and exposed to room temperature, the glass bottle remained cooler longer than the aluminium bottle.” [3] This conclusion is consistent with the fact that the thermal conductivity of aluminium (237 W/(m·K))[4] is significantly higher than that of glass (1.1 W/(m·K))[4].
(Okay, that’s just some shit from Wikipedia, so you can ignore it, but I don’t think the aluminum bottles are double-walled, but wouldn’t it be nice if they were and they could whomp them out cheaply, I think it would keep your beer cool, like, forever.)
The Brazilian beer Bohemia uses several bottles, depending of the type. One of them is opaque.
See the left bottle in this page:
That’s probably their “Belgian” offering, if I’m translating the name properly. Lots of Belgian beers are bottled in opaque containers.