Refrigeration

Will beer become skunky if in the bottles too long before refrigeration?

Nope. But sunlight will. Keep them dark/covered.

I suppose that depends on what you mean by too long. Many beers mellow out over time, to their improvement in the bottle outside of the refrigerator. Your beers condition in the bottle, and the yeast keeps working on them a little bit, as well as other enzymatic reactions that help "condition" and "mature" the beer. As soon as you drop them to a refrigerated temperature this puts the yeasties to sleep.

Some beers may even become excellent after months in the bottle, some beers are best kept for more short periods in the bottle (IPA's in my experience), things with high hop profiles that are desired in the end result, perhaps shouldn't be left out quite as long..in my experience. A lot of Belgians such as I like, mellow out and taste wonderful after 6-18 weeks in the bottle.

Just no sun, use amber.

If they are warm or lightstruck. I keep bottles in the closet until they or I am ready. Usually @ 60 f . In the summer they go in the fridge after carbonation, it gets pretty hot here.

Heat doesn't really generate "skunkiness", but light/UV does.

Heat can modify the flavors of the beer, sometimes nicely but generally NOT.

I keep my bottled beers at 78F regularly in the summer, but I wouldn't go much higher than that.

MC

Will the beer start to mature again if refrigerated then after a couple of day left at room temperature again?

Yes. In fact some new bewers think you need to "cold condition" ales, and they stick them in the cold. And they don't carb or condition in the cold. Ale yeast goes dormant in the cold, and like you, when asleep, yeast don't do anything.

So in order to get them to work again, we tell folks to get them back above 70 and shake them to get the yeast up into solution so it can work again.

It does NOT harm the yeast.

Like others have said, skunkiness is a reaction to the isomerized alpha acids from hops being struck by light.

JasonOi said:

Will the beer start to mature again if refrigerated then after a couple of day left at room temperature again?

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It needs time to wake,and probably requires some longer conditioning.Beer evolves with age.I drink a brew from a batch every few weeks usually and it evolves and changes just about every time,and if it sucks(hasnt happened much) or is harsh i know it needs time and will change.
Ive never refrigerated a full batch over a few months bottled,except lagers.They usually get better and usually dont taste exactly the same,they evolve and in most cases for the better,with maybe the exception of super hoppy beers,but ive had those get better sometimes as well.