At the time, I myself was just getting into Good Beer, and it was a WTF moment for me. Sediment? I’ve never seen sediment in beer.
Well, today I was up the street buying filter masks when it occurred to me that there were some interesting microbrews at the liquor store halfway down the strip mall that I hadn’t had the chance to try yet. I popped in and got myself a sixer each of Hazed & Infused and New Belgium Skinny Dip. Hazed & Infused said “unfiltered” in the rather wordy description of how indie it was, but I didn’t give that much thought.
Until I was about halfway through my beer and this suddenly struck me like a brick from the sky. I guess I am hardcore.
Seriously though, am I drinking dirt or something? Should this concern me more than it does?
You should have seen the time my buddy and I tried bottling our own beer into Cub Foods plastic water bottles. There was a good quarter inch of that crud on the bottom, and when you opened it up, the CO2 coming out of solution would start sucking it to the top and through the beer.
I just assumed it was yeast, which I hear is a good source of magnesium.
Sediment is pretty much unavoidable in bottle-conditioned beer - this is where the beer is bottled after fermentation, then a small amount of sugar is added to each bottle and the cap is sealed, fermentation begins again inside the sealed bottle and the CO[sub]2[/sub] produced by the yeast is forced into solution by the pressure and the beer ends up naturally fizzy as a result. (well, that’s one way to do it - I bet there are others too) The yeast that grows in the bottle falls to the bottom and forms a layer of sediment.
These beers should be stored upright for a good while before opening and should be poured with great care (don’t let the air cluck in through the neck as you pour). It’s worth it.
Sometimes it’s not so dead. Mr. brown once drank the sediment down, not wanting to waste the last 1/2 inch of Chimay in the bottle, and was plagued with some awesome bloating and flatulence for the next 24 hours.
Thanks for the tips–I had a couple of them on their sides in my fairly-packed (full of beer :D) refrigerator. I swapped them with two upstanding bottles of Karl Strauss Woodie Gold, which is the inferior beer anyway.
Agreed, it’s not always dead - or at least, not all dead. I homebrew and that’s the yeast used to carbonate the bottle, rather than injecting CO2 as is done with beers that don’t have any sediment. The yeast is more than likely just dormant and can produce very “interesting” GI effects as teela brown referred to. Most beer aficionados that I know of don’t drink it, as it can introduce “off” flavors or cause GI trouble. It’s not bad for you otherwise, though.
Don’t pour the bottle completely empty, and don’t glug the pour. It isn’t going to hurt you any, but the yeast perks right up when it gets to your GI tract, and it tends to eat all the stuff your e. coli doesn’t. This produces the aforementioned gas. Lots of it. With accompanying ketones and methane by-products.
By “don’t glug the pour”, I assume you mean “don’t let air slip in” as mentioned upthread. At the risk of sounding a little idiotic, how exactly do I do that? Slowly and at a slight angle?
Back in my homebrewing days, if I wasn’t in the hardcore German purity law mood, and I felt like making some “lawnmower beer”, I’d fine it with gelatine. The sediment would then be more or less a solid, hard-to-disturb, thin layer on the bottom of the bottle, like a coat of paint. Then I’d carefully decant the beer into a jug. Sediment-free bottle-conditioned beer!
Pretty much. A slow, easy pour is what you want. Watch the beer, and when the yeast gets to the lip of the bottle, stop. You leave a little beer undrunk, but that’s the price you pay for good beer.
Good to know. FTR, I have not had the dreaded Flatulence Attack (knock on wood), so I guess that yeast was dead after all.
I had a chance to try Skinny Dip too, and I must say, I’m rather pleased with myself on this beer run. Which is good, since I was disappointed last time when I broke my Karl Strauss rule: always take the Trolley.
Or you could just stretch some nylons over the top of the bottle prior to the pour, as I’ve done with wine where I got overly enthusiastic with the corkscrew.
