Is beer supposed to be refrigerated?

All my beer is bottle-carbonated. What I do is let the beer sit around in cupboards at room temperature (pretty warm in TX) and then I put a few at a time in the fridge. They are in the fridge maybe a couple days before I drink them. I have heard people talk like once their beer is bottle-carbonated, they immediately stick it in the fridge as if that helps conditioning or something. Am I supposed to be storing my beer in the fridge? There's no way I have fridge space for all my homebrew.

I find that the longer a hb is in the frig the better it taste imo

BetterSense said:

All my beer is bottle-carbonated. What I do is let the beer sit around in cupboards at room temperature (pretty warm in TX) and then I put a few at a time in the fridge. They are in the fridge maybe a couple days before I drink them. I have heard people talk like once their beer is bottle-carbonated, they immediately stick it in the fridge as if that helps conditioning or something. Am I supposed to be storing my beer in the fridge? There's no way I have fridge space for all my homebrew.

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i've read that putting the in the fridge for minimum of 48 hours before drinking will help with the conditioning. but i'm in the same boat as you, i don't have the fridge space for all of it in the fridge at the same time. i think that it staying on the shelf until it goes into the fridge will be fine. of course, in iowa (especially during the winter), my basement stays pretty cool for shelf storage. makes it kinda hard to ferment ales in winter though.

It's a matter of time and temperature. The higher your storage temperature, the shorter time time before the beer starts degrading. If you are cycling through your stock and room temperature is under 80F, you should be fine.

Long-term, you need to keep it cool.

BetterSense said:

...I have heard people talk like once their beer is bottle-carbonated, they immediately stick it in the fridge as if that helps conditioning or something...

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I think its the 'something' as opposed to conditioning... I'm guessing it is to cold crash any remaining particulate matter out of the beer. I also find that I have chill haze if the beer has only been in a few days. Leave it in there a week or more and there is no longer any haze. Probably a combination of the two.

If what you are doing works for you carry on. I did the same for years before my kegorator. Heck I used to just put my porters under the sink in the cupboard and drink them at slightly cooler then room temp because I like the way the flavour comes through at higher temps. Do what you like. As was pointed out, high heat and heat cycling are detrimental to beer quality. Avoid that and you are all good sir!