Ah, because I’ve learned that bringing brew which isn’t well regarded by many leads to insults and other forms of derision.
Heck, I know I’m in for insults and other forms of derision when visiting-just don’t want it to be owing to the beer.
I generally just get beer in cans. Yep, even Coors, Miller Lite and Keystone (same as Coors light).
At a restaurant I will get a higher quality beer to drink with a meal, but for knocking around the house, a can is fine.
I’m missing something here. How long are beers in bottles exposed to ‘light’. Every beer cooler I have been in is pretty damn dark. Maybe a couple of florescent lights. The beer is stacked in such a way that hardly any light gets to it.
How long does anyone keep these beers around anyway that a little bit of light could skunk it?
When I have people over. I’ll buy a couple of six packs of different stuff that looks interesting. Local micro’s and stuff. It’s fun to try different stuff, and I will have some basic stuff around for people that don’t want something with the fuller taste.
Easy peasy.
I had always associated a certain flavor in Heineken as “skunk”, until I had one on draft that tasted just the same. Turns out I just don’t like Heineken.
My “house wine” is Newcastle, which unfortunately comes in clear bottles. (IIRC, brown bottles block almost all of the UV, green bottles let in about 40%, and clear bottles don’t stop anything.) I’ve bought one or two six-packs that were a little skunked, but still very drinkable. These days I buy it in the cardboard cartons from places that rotate their stock frequently, and I haven’t had a bad one in a while. (Of course, it’s also in cans, so I could go that way; I just never have.)
Cite?
I think he meant to say that it’s pre-skunked right there in the brewery.
How do I tell if a beer is “skunked”? Does that mean it’s more bitter than usual?
I’ve always liked Corona – I guess my taste in beer isn’t very refined. But then I don’t usually drink it for the taste anyway.
More like ass would be more accurate.
It has a very low snob appeal. There’s actually nothing wrong with that. Drink what you like. At least it’s not Cap’n Morgan’s Wort Coolers.
Don’t be ashamed of the Corona. I like beer of many kinds for different reasons, and I like Corona because it is so light. It is a favorite “summer beer.” It is the only beer I would add lime to though, so I am aware that it is very different than other beers.
You don’t have to pick between cheap and good either. There are so many different kinds of beer that you can hardly pick one and call it the best. I get to try a lot of different kinds, as I have friends who are in an Irish band and they often play in places with lots of different beers. Now, my husband and said friend in the band have taken over an entire room in our basement, converted it to a second kitchen, and made it a brew room. So I have about 30 gallons of something being made down there most of the time. This latest batch looks like it will be a good one. (They do use brown bottles, BTW.)
But if given a choice, I’ll pick wine anyway!
Lightstruck beer has a very unpleasant sulfury aroma. Many people compare it to burnt rubber. It’s unmistakable once you have experienced it.
I don’t have a specific citation for you, but Miller does indeed use a pre-isomerized hop extract that prevents their beer from becoming lightstruck in the clear bottles. It’s a patented process, maybe a patent search would turn it up.
You might be surprised at how little light it takes to affect beer. One of my favorite beers, DAB, is in green bottles. Even though I buy and keep it in enclosed cardboard 12-packs, I often end up dumping the last 6 or 7 bottles just because the little bit of light they are exposed to when the refrigerator door is open ruins them. 5 minutes of exposure to fluorescent light can ruin a beer.
[QUOTE=Phantom Dennis]
How do I tell if a beer is “skunked”? Does that mean it’s more bitter than usual?..
[QUOTE]
Here’s how to find out what skunked beer tastes like. In warm weather, when a closed car gets really hot, leave a beer in your car for a few days. Then chill it and drink it. After that, you will recognize it when you taste it.
5 minutes? So you’re saying that every single bottle of Corona, Becks, Pilsner Urquell, etc sitting on a supermarket or liquor store shelf for 6 minutes is toast? Sounds a mite exaggerated to me.
I feel safe in saying that any green or clear bottle at your local supermarket that is exposed to light is going to have a detectable level of ‘skunky’ flavor. Supermarkets in particular tend to use fluorescent lighting and they don’t have high turnover on imports, so am confident in my prediction.
I have found objectionable skunkiness in brown bottled beer after as little as 30 hours of exposure to flourescent light. Fluorescents absolutely kill beer.
Admittedly my “beer tastebuds” are a little more sensitive to off-flavors since I am trained to look for them, but I can taste skunkiness in a glass of cold beer that has been sitting in sunlight for less than 10 minutes.
Even though Corona is often held up as the king of skunked beers, I find that it’s really low hopping levels help it to be less skunky that the green bottled European imports. I personally wouldn’t buy any green or clear-bottled beer that is not in an enclosed cardboard case, with the as-noted exception of Miller beers.
I call RR “beer-flavored water.”
Still don’t know that I’m entirely convinced, but a brief google turned up this article by a guy who considers beer as fragile as AW - and also discusses Miller’s skunk-proof hops.
I am sure my palate is nowhere near as discerning as some folks’, but I know I did put a lot of thought and practice into appreciating all manner of beers, and I am very surprised to hear that skunking is as rapid and as pervasive as you say.
Unfortunately, since I no longer drink, I won’t have the opportunity to conduct repeated tests. 
BTW AW - what is your profession such that you are trained to taste off-flavors?
He works in a brewery!
Trust the pro…beer goes skunky real fast. Just one of the reasons a Corona will never pass these lips, no matter how thirsty I am. If it’s the only beer at the party, I’m at the wrong house.
Usage nitpick: “as fragile as AW does.”
I was thinking “What’s AW? How fragile is it?”
Actually I am very fragile :).
Dinsdale I am the Quality Assurance lab supervisor for a regional craft brewery. A (very small) part of my job is doing a ‘sensory evaluation’ of the beer before it is released for packaging.
Last summer I took part in a 10-week training program in which we were taught about beer flaws, then given intentionally ruined beer and required to identify the flaw and it’s cause. Over the following weeks the levels of the objectionable compounds were reduced until they were just barely at the detectable level. The course was fun, but it ruined me for any beer that isn’t technically perfect. My automatic reaction upon drinking a beer now is to look for what’s wrong with it, rather than enjoying it for what it is.
Is that like, “Honey I just got home from work. Can I just sit down and perform a sensory evaluation on this beer for a couple minutes?”
This is not the cite I originally found the information on (I believe I first read it on Realbeer.com), but here’s a cite.
To me, it smells exactly like a skunk. Not full skunk spray, but you know that smell when a skunk is in the area–that one. Or, if you haven’t been near any skunks recently, have you had one of those scratch & sniff stickers with the skunk on it? It smells like that. It’s immediately obvious (to me, at any rate).