Wait, what's that about our beer??

Hi Everyone, I want to start off by wishing everyone a Happy New Year!!

I spent much of the holidays watching the Mythbusters Marathon on TV...and that got me to thinking...What are some of the myths that we hear about beer?  Are they true?  Maybe it's just stuff that we've believed all along because that's what we've been told.

With that, I say that today, why don't we dive into those myths and see what we can find?  Are there things that we thought we knew but we've been wrong about?

The first one, "Beer tastes better in Bottles than in Cans."

We've all heard this one, "You should drink beer in bottles!  It doesn't have that metallic taste."

Hey, I get it, Bud, Miller, Pabsts...they all come in cans.  All the good beers, like those are in those 22oz bombers, they're glass.  I get my Bruery or Goose Island beers in bottles, so they must be better, right?

Not necessarily.  Actually cans can keep beer fresher than bottles.  And even in bottles, the color of the glass can make a HUGE difference on how long beer can stay fresh.  There's two evil factors working against your tasty beer; Oxygen and Light.  So, with the potential of oxygen that's in the bottle, oxygen that's coming in under the cap, and light coming through the bottle...you can see why a can might keep beer fresher longer.  The worst bottles for beer are those clear glass, and the green really isn't much better.  Brown glass is going to hold out the most light, but add in twist offs and you still have the issue of letting in oxygen.

"But C-pher, what about that metallic taste that you get with cans?"  Well, fortunately, modern day cans have a coating inside them that's called a comestible polymeric coating.  This forms a protective barrier between the can and the beer.  That keeps the beer from oxidizing with the can and giving it that metallic taste.

And to prove it, many craft brewers are now canning right along with bottling.  If cans were worse than bottles, do you really think that many craft brewers would risk their beer in cans?

Any way that you want to look at it, the best way is to drink from a glass anyway.  So take those cans and bottles and empty them into the proper beer drinking glass.  What glass you ask?  Well, stand by,

we'll talk about later!


The next one is anything you've heard about dark beers.  They are heavy, they are more caloric, they have higher APVs, etc...

There's really no correlation between the color of the beer, and anything listed above.  Actually, Guinness, which most people call, "Liquid Bread," is only about 4% ABV and about 125 calories at 16 ounces.  Put this against a Coors or Bud, which is around 200 calories and has about a 5% ABV per 16 ounces.  You'll see that you're better off with that dark beer sometimes.

There's a lot of light, dark beers, and very heavy, light beers.  As we've been told growing up, you can't judge a book by it's cover. Honestly, the main reason that the beer is dark is because they roasted the malts longer.  It's the same malts used in other beers, just roasted longer.  It's much like roasting coffee, dark roast beans and light roast beans have the same amount of calories.  The difference is the dark roast has a more robust flavor due to the longer roasting times.  But it doesn't add calories into the bean.


What was that?  Beer needs to be served in a frosted glass and extremely cold?

Don't do that...different beers are meant to be served at their own temperature range.  And for the love of all things holy, DO NOT USE A FROSTY GLASS!

Frozen glasses cause all types of issues.  They water down the beer, as that ice melts off the glass that water is going into your tasty drink.  Also, beer served at near frozen temps will blind the taste buds against beer served at a recommended temperature. You lose aromatics when you serve beer too cold as well.  We all know that a large portion of taste is also attached to the smell.  You're wanting to taste and smell all those flavors in the beer that you drink, not hide them under cold conditions.  Also, the frost in your freezer picks up the flavors of other things in the ice box.  That means, when you frost a glass, you're going to end up adding those flavors into your beer. So, you'll once again never get the taste that the brewer intended you to taste.  While our well known American Light Lagers should be served around 38 degrees, the rest of the beers we drink shouldn't be.

And, speaking of glasses, much like there's different glasses for wines, there's different glasses for beers.  If you want, use them, they will enhance the enjoyment of your beer.  If you only buy one, then I think that the standard tulip glass is the best all around glass for drinking beer.

The Beer Temple has a great guide for beer temperatures and glasses.


Now, the last thing I want to talk about is how all those ads actually tell us something.  I mean, we heard it with the girl and her blind date with a french model.  I saw it on the Internet/TV, it MUST be true.

Well, sorry to tell you, the beer companies have been telling us lies and spreading these myths we're talking about as long as I can remember.  Hey, Guinness is Good for you, right?

Look what are we hearing from Miller Now, "Our Beer is Triple Hopped."  I'm pretty sure that most all beers today are using three additions. So, what's so new about that? And I believe that Coors is excited about their beer being cold filtered.  Is there really a Hot Filtering process? So, they make up things to make us think that they are doing something different.  The main problem with beer ads is that they aren't targeting anyone new.  We all know about these brands, they are trying to get more of the market share.  Trying to get us to. "Switch."  Well, knowledge is power!!

I think that the best thing that you can do is do like the rest of us that love beer.  Go out, ask questions, look up how your beer is made.  That will tell you more about how to best enjoy what you like to drink.

When you know more, you can enjoy that beer just that much more, right?  And ultimately that's our goal, to fully enjoy those beers we like so much.   And as always, if there's a myth about beer that you want to talk about, then let us all know!