# Bottling vs keg taste



## beer-head (21/6/13)

So i am reading that once your beer is bottled the longer that you leave it the better it seems to taste. So if you keg your brew and force carbonate it and therefor start drinking it a few days after fermentation does it not taste as nice as bottled beer that may have been sitting around for a month or 2?


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## JDW81 (21/6/13)

One element of bottle carbonation is the time it takes to carbonate. This isn't an instant process like force carbing, and takes time to get to the desired level of carbonation.

I don't keg, but friends do. They have their grain to brain beers (hefes etc) which are ready to drink pretty promptly after fermentation is complete and others which they leave carbed in the keg for months before tapping.

There a lot of beers which will benefit from a long conditioning time, irrespective of packaging method. I can't imagine there are two many brewers who would knock out a russian imperial stout, force carb it and drink it the next day. I wouldn't do it justice.

Short answer is it depends on the beer.


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## verysupple (21/6/13)

Well...it depends.

I found when I was doing kits and extract batches with poor fermentation temp control that they indeed tasted a lot better after a couple of months. This was because it gave the yeast plenty of time to reabsorb and process a lot of the not-so-nice tasting compounds that it created during fermentation (like the cidery, green apple taste etc.). If you control the fermentation well and leave it in the fermentor for at least a couple of weeks to clean up (rather than the 1 week recommended in the kit instructions) then you minimise the amount of those "bad" compounds that are produced to begin with meaning you can drink it almost straight away.

I hope this clears it up a bit for you.


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## Bribie G (21/6/13)

Agree, depends on the style. Ales such as UK Best Bitters, American Pale and Amber ales etc are meant to be served on draught, and served young.

The bottled version is usually filtered, pasteurised and bottled so it is "frozen in time" and does not usually "improve" with age.

Lagers - the most drunk style on the planet - are fermented then kept at a low temperature for a couple of weeks up to a couple of months, then nearly always filtered, pasteurised then kegged and bottled to be served as quickly as possible.

So really very few beers in the World actually mature in the bottle - perhaps just a handful in any nation if at all (in Australia for example Coopers, Little Creatures, a few of the craft offerings ).

So for the home brewer, we normally brew styles that are supposed to be drunk young anyway. Kit beers do improve after a while in the bottle to reduce the kit twang and clear right out and gas up, which hides some of the "faults" - if you want to use that term - in the beer.

So it's not possible to make an "a" or "b" statement re bottling vs kegging. What I have found personally is that when I bottle off some excess beer after filling the kegs and keep them as an archive, after a month or two they taste quite different to the keg version and more often than not they seem to have lost hop character and gone a bit "not fresh" tasting.
On the other hand one of the best brews I ever did was an Aus Pale Ale made on Coopers bottle yeast. I literally lost ten bottles that I'd put in a wardrobe in a spare room for around nine months and they were magnificent. Probably because it's a style that is supposed to be matured in the bottle, using the right yeast.


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## Phoney (21/6/13)

JDW81 said:


> There a lot of beers which will benefit from a long conditioning time, irrespective of packaging method. I can't imagine there are two many brewers who would knock out a russian imperial stout, force carb it and drink it the next day. I wouldn't do it justice.


I do. 

But then I'll have it sitting on tap for the next 6 months, I takes me that long to finish a keg of RIS


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## Bribie G (21/6/13)

My RIS has been in a sugar-primed keg under the garage bench for a couple of months now, will bottle some off for the August State comp - then some for Xmas - then keep the rest for _next _year's comps.


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## bum (21/6/13)

Bribie G said:


> So really very few beers in the World actually mature in the bottle


Can you expand on this please? I only ask because I've seen you say it a few times now and it always confuses the shit out of me. Are you saying that there's not many _bottle conditioned_ beers around? Because just about every beer I buy is bottle conditioned and there is nothing that approaches brand-loyalty in my purchasing habits. There are a great many beers sold "live" (not an expression I like to see used in the marketing for a beer but it seems suitable here).


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## Dave70 (21/6/13)

For me, bigger or malt driven beers go in the bottle.

Lighter, hop forward beers go into the keg.


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## Diesel80 (21/6/13)

I have noticed that with the AusPA I have on tap now,
when it was young, 4weeks, it tasted quite like coopers pale with a bit of pear and banana from the yeast, beaut wack of POR in there for good measure. Top drop.

Fast forward now another 3 months, and it doesn't have the same yeast flavours as strong as before, nor the hop hit, however it now tastes EXACTLY like a pub poured Coopers Pale (just without the floaties).

Is my beer stale I wonder, and does that mean that the coopers we drink is stale too? Sorry if this post is not completely relevant to the thread.

Beer was force carbed and not filtered.

Cheers,
D80


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## mosto (21/6/13)

Dave70 said:


> For me, bigger or malt driven beers go in the bottle.
> 
> Lighter, hop forward beers go into the keg.


That has pretty much been my line of thinking, but I took a gravity reading of a chocolate porter that's been in the fermenter for three weeks last night and Holy Mary Mother of God!!! I've never had a beer taste so good straight out of the fermenter. I keg, but, being a dark beer, was actually going to bottle this and leave for a few months. But given how it's tasting, the fact that the kegs are all empty, and it's the perfect weather now for drinking porter by the fire, I'm going to keg and start drinking this weekend. I still want 3-4 bottles out of it for comps, Xmas in July etc. so may keep one or two for a few months for myself to see if it gets even better.


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## NewtownClown (21/6/13)

When I was operating a bar in Oxford, UK, an old guy would come in for a pint of Varsity (real ale) every weekday arvo. The now defunct Morrel's brewery was just up the road and the ales arrived very fresh. At times, he would finish his pint and say, "that was a good'un, today". I would think, "Silly old fool, was the same pint yesterday and the day before".
Now I know better. The beer reached a point after tapping that appealed to his taste.


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## Guysmiley54 (22/6/13)

I bottle exclusively and notice some very interesting changes in flavour in the first 8 weeks in the bottle. As suggested by other brewers in this thread, I give my beers a good period of rest at slightly above fermentation temps to clean themselves up before cold conditioning and bottle priming.

I have a wine cellar fridge that can hold my bottles perfectly at 18C whilst carbing. I find that within a week they have 80% carbed up but the process of fermenting the priming sugar results in an acetone like flavour and aroma. By week two this has mostly faded and will be gone all together by about week 3.

In ales with high aroma additions I have noticed a strange pattern lately with my beers... When very young, aroma tends to diminish and blend into the beer but somewhere between weeks 4 and 6 aroma seems much stronger than before. This is my favourite time for drinking apa/ipa styles. In hops like Citra and Galaxy, this 4-6 week mark is when I can perceive the most tropical fruit notes distinctly.

Very keen to get into kegging at some stage and see for myself how flavour changes over time and the effect that storage temperatures play also being that kegged beers will be packaged and then stored chilled as opposed to the 2-3 week period I keep my bottles at fermentation temps..


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## Bribie G (22/6/13)

bum said:


> Can you expand on this please? I only ask because I've seen you say it a few times now and it always confuses the shit out of me. Are you saying that there's not many _bottle conditioned_ beers around? Because just about every beer I buy is bottle conditioned and there is nothing that approaches brand-loyalty in my purchasing habits. There are a great many beers sold "live" (not an expression I like to see used in the marketing for a beer but it seems suitable here).


Apart from Coopers Sparkling I never buy bottle conditioned beers. Could you name a few of the live ones? I wouldn't mind culturing up some of the yeasts to try.


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## JDW81 (22/6/13)

phoneyhuh said:


> I do.
> 
> But then I'll have it sitting on tap for the next 6 months, I takes me that long to finish a keg of RIS


How does it taste after you first tap the keg, compared to 6 months down the track?

Last stout I made (although it was bottled) hit its peak at about 18 months.


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## breakbeer (22/6/13)

I keg 19 or so litres & then put 2L in a growler to carb up for a few weeks. I force carb the keg & drink straight away. I have to admit, when the Growler is finally ready to drink it taste better than the same kegged beer. I'm just far too impatient & hate bottling with a passion


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## manticle (22/6/13)

Bribie G said:


> Apart from Coopers Sparkling I never buy bottle conditioned beers. Could you name a few of the live ones? I wouldn't mind culturing up some of the yeasts to try.



Samuel smiths from memory, load of belgians (all trappists I can think of plus plenty of others), sierra nevada, young's special london ale are a few.


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## Bribie G (22/6/13)

AFAIK the Sam Smith's stingo is the bottle conditioned one - didn't realise that SNPA was also - good excuse to grab a six pack (saw it in BWS Taree the other day).  Might see what the yeast does for my American Wheat.

Off topic but I do know a lot of US breweries use Ringwood, which apparently is a more authentic version of the Ringwood that is sold in Wyeast packs - wouldn't mind getting my hands on some bottled beer made on that yeast.

Edit: just checked up on our _sister site_ Homebrewtalk and the SN is apparently just Wy 1056 - never mind.


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## manticle (22/6/13)

There was a webpage that listed bottle conditioned beers and which ones used the primary strain in the bottling but it may not be accurate and may not be up to date. I'll see if I can hunt it up.


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## doon (22/6/13)

isnt sierra just the chico strain


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## doon (22/6/13)

or us05?


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## doon (22/6/13)

oops didnt read your post bribie


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## manticle (22/6/13)

Here's one where they seem to have actually used some recultured yeast to see for themselves but it is 15 years old: http://www.nada.kth.se/~alun/Beer/Bottle-Yeasts/


Seymour's post on this page: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=55818


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## Markbeer (22/6/13)

Sierra Nevadas process is far different from homebrewers average bottle conditioning. they filter the beer which removes all yeast among other things then add a calculated amount at bottling to carb up.


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## manticle (22/6/13)

Most commercially bottle conditioned beer follows that process.


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## carniebrew (22/6/13)

manticle said:


> There was a webpage that listed bottle conditioned beers and which ones used the primary strain in the bottling but it may not be accurate and may not be up to date. I'll see if I can hunt it up.


This reminds me, I recall from the "Yeast" book a while back where Chris White intimated that a lot of breweries _say_ they use a different yeast strain at bottling time, in order to protect their primary strain, but in reality he believes that very few actually do this...they just want you to think they do.


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## bear09 (9/9/15)

OK interestingly me and the old man brew together and take a cube each. I keg and he bottles... same exact wort, same yeast, same temps - one in the bottle and one in the keg. Here are the results:

KEG:
I can be conditioned and kegged and tapped in 3 weeks (ALE). I dont force carb and I sometimes filter but rarely (just because I cant be bothered). My beer tastes very 'clean'. The bubbles are always tiny and the head very creamy and packed. The beer tastes fresh and pure and usually drinks very very well. The old man loves it and so do I.

BOTTLE:
The same beer from the bottle takes about a month before its properly carbonated and drinking well. Any earlier and there is a yeastiness about it which detracts from the goodness. From the bottle the beer has an earthiness about it which you dont have from the keg. The flavour is not as crisp and pure as that from the keg though the hops seem to be a little more pronounced. I would say that my preference is for the keg BUT ONLY JUST. The advantages of bottles I think is that they can be put away for a few months and brought out gradually... and can then be mixed and matched with other beers that you have made. I wouldnt keep a beer in a keg for 6 months... I just wouldnt (and well really couldnt  ) do that.


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## stux (9/9/15)

I find the beer in the keg is drinkable immediately after carbing... if you keg crash-chilled beer, and rush carb it, its drinkable.

I've normally already crash-chilled the beer for maybe 3-4 days, and its had a relatively long 2 week ferment. So all up about 3 weeks in the fermenter.

BUT it improves dramatically over 1-2 weeks in the keg. Essentially its lagering I guess.

Thus, I tend to slow-carb in the keg, ie at dispensing pressure, which takes about a week, or I juice it to 300kpa for 18 hrs or so to give it a head start. Ideally I'll wait a week to start drinking it.

It will tend to improve continuously until the keg's very best glass... and that glass is when you invariable know the next glass will blow.

Beer seems to stratify, both in the keg, and in the fermenter. I do triple batches in a single fermenter, and each keg tastes different.


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## Rocker1986 (9/9/15)

I noticed that on my first keg, a Bohemian Pilsner. It was at my expectations of the recipe only a couple of days after kegging it, but after a couple of weeks it had improved quite a bit and I was really enjoying it - and then it blew dry. 

Conversely a bottled batch of the exact same recipe still doesn't taste as good and it's been in the bottle about 2 months now.

Like I needed another reason to give up bottling, mostly anyway :lol:


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## bear09 (9/9/15)

Definitely if you can leave a beer in a keg UNTAPPED for 2 weeks it improves dramatically. From 4 days old to 14 days old the difference is amazing. Its like the flavour bonds and smooths in that time.

I have NEVER waited 14 days... not once :chug: After 4 days once I know its carbed im into it. I have no self control at all.


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## Rocker1986 (9/9/15)

I doubt I'll be waiting 14 days either, at least until I get a bit of a supply chain going. The bad thing about this is that it will take forever to get the supply up, but the good thing about that is that it means brewing more often, and I'm not complaining about that at all...


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## micblair (9/9/15)

I think drinking the beer when its ready probably makes more of a difference than natural vs. forced carb. With natural carbonation, its obvious when the beer is ready to drink.


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## stux (9/9/15)

bear09 said:


> Definitely if you can leave a beer in a keg UNTAPPED for 2 weeks it improves dramatically. From 4 days old to 14 days old the difference is amazing. Its like the flavour bonds and smooths in that time.
> 
> I have NEVER waited 14 days... not once :chug: After 4 days once I know its carbed im into it. I have no self control at all.







Rocker1986 said:


> I doubt I'll be waiting 14 days either, at least until I get a bit of a supply chain going. The bad thing about this is that it will take forever to get the supply up, but the good thing about that is that it means brewing more often, and I'm not complaining about that at all...


that's why I brew triple batches and have 5 keg spots for 4 taps.

5th keg is carbing up waiting for one of the others to blow


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## Rocker1986 (9/9/15)

I have 3 taps and 4 kegs currently but am probably gonna buy another couple of kegs - just in case they all blow dry close to each other at some point, I can have 3 ready to go straight in.


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## Danscraftbeer (9/9/15)

Personally comparing bottle conditioned to kegging is that Kegging wins in a balance of pro's and cons. You can always bottle from the keg (Draught Beer). Excuse me throwing that basic thing. Make your own portable six pack without sediment. That is as impressive and clear as your tap beer. I only bottle ferment leftover brew if I overshoot in kegging volume. The comparisons of keg/bottle ferment are different that is for sure. Just makes it all more interesting. :chug:


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## Rocker1986 (9/9/15)

I'm actually looking forward to getting back to my 25 litre batches (few process changes I didn't even realise I'd made had mucked this up), so I can bottle the leftovers after kegging and then compare the two types on the exact same batch, rather than just the same recipe. Should definitely be interesting.


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## heyhey (9/9/15)

I reckon bottling aerates more causing it to taste way less fresh than a kegged beer of similar age.


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## Grott (11/9/15)

I love the "crispness" of kegged beer but you can't beat an age bottled stout.
Cheers


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