Trustyrusty said:
Hi I found a beer in the fridge that I was going to chuck out.... did not think it was any good..but it must have been in the fridge for months....I opened and I was quite surprised it was drinkable and much improved. It seemed to have lost a lot of background bitterness....
I was doing a bit of reading and makes sense... (Even reading that you could improve a commercial beer leaving in the fridge for awhile)
Got me thinking, maybe I should lager all my beers..... How many people lager their beers...?
How long - I hear a month? Does is make a vast difference..... I am talking from the point of view from kits but I guess it will be the same for all
beers....
Trustyrusty,
There is a difference between lagering and placing a bottle in the fridge for conditioning. You are right though with the yeast not carbonating (or in the case of lager yeast very slow to carbonate) under cold temps in the bottle. Generally lagering is done prior to bottling. Once bottling takes place, the temp is allowed to rise to brewing temps or higher for two weeks or so, enabling the yeast a better environment to produce carbonation than at cold temps.
Your description of a mellowing of the bitterness in the beer would happen at normal room temps over a period of months anyway. Being in the fridge at cold temps would probably slow this process somewhat, but either way months of storage will mellow and change the flavour profiles and that process is not dependant on yeast being present in the brew. Commercial beers also do this. I once had a carton of Oettinger pils that had been stored for 3 years at room temp and was 2 years past its best before date. It had a much maltier flavour than the 'in date' ones and had lost much of the bitterness that a fresh beer has to balance out the malt.
Traditional lagering is done to assist in obtaining clarity, during the period the yeast is allowed to condition the beer. Some English authors on the subject prefer the term 'cold conditioning' as opposed to 'lagering' as it is more descriptive and has no reference to what the English speaking countries have termed Lager beers as a type. This is important as Ales can be cold conditioned and many are.
Bottle conditioning is different from 'Lagering'. It can be done in the fridge at cold temps, but the benefits are not the same as traditional 'Lagering'.
For info;
'Lager beer' is an Anglicised term from the German word Largern which means "to store" and is related to the English word "larder" (ie large pantry or room
to store food etc). In German, to 'lager' something does not mean cold storage, but in brewing terms, because of German traditional methods of storing in cold caves or cellars, this is how its meaning was taken when Anglicised. The Germans don't call "Gelagerte" beers 'Lager(s)' as this doesn't make much sense to them (It would be like us refering to the beers in short as "Stored" beers). Most Lager beers in Germany are refered to by their type (ie Pils/Pilsner, Export, Helles, Bock, Schwarzbier, Kellerbier etc) even though they are all lager beers (or cold conditioned). "Kalt gelagerte bier" (cold conditioned) beer is an expression that would make sense to a German to describe the method used in conditioning the beer prior to bottling. This usually takes place in a "fass" (traditionally barrel, but today a large s/s vessels would be used) for weeks or months depending on the beer type. This lagering period is traditionally done prior to filtering and bottling/kegging.
Any cold storage after bottling/kegging is not considered to be 'Lagering' in English terms anyway.
