kegging elitism

hunter_la5 said:

I just drink mine straight out of the primary with a curly straw. Much less hassle.

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Pfffffftttt!

The curly straw oxygenates the beer, I can immediately tell if I've drunk beer through a curly straw and the loops cause the flavonoids to be slung out of suspension due to centrifugal force, thus further affecting the taste. The difference is obvious.

Noobs!

hunter_la5 said:

I just drink mine straight out of the primary with a curly straw. Much less hassle.

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How Egyptian of you!

Papazian's column in the current Zymurgy - Take Care of Your Craft Beer - mentions a benefit of bottle-conditioning.

'Homebrewers and any brewers who referment/bottle condition their beers have a slight edge on preserving the fresh quality of their beer. Live yeast scavenge oxygen while in the bottle and reduce the effects of oxidation.'

Kegs/bottles, buckets/carboys, plastic/glass, aluminum/steel, blah blah blah. The guy at my LHBS can be a jerk, he is very condescending. Now that I do all grain and shop there a lot (and winning a competition with one of his recipes might have helped, too), he is cool with me, but he likes to treat people like they aren't good enough to brew. That seems to a common thing in brewing, more than other interests I've been involved in.

There is nothing wrong with bottle conditioning. However, chances are if you took a few bottles to your LHBS, the yeasties got pretty stirred up in the bottle. Maybe the fellows at the shop were tasting the yeast....something that wouldn't be in a botttle if off of a kegger. Just some food for thought.....

Thanks everybody! Your comments really cheered me up.

Hammy71 said:

There is nothing wrong with bottle conditioning. However, chances are if you took a few bottles to your LHBS, the yeasties got pretty stirred up in the bottle. Maybe the fellows at the shop were tasting the yeast....something that wouldn't be in a botttle if off of a kegger. Just some food for thought.....

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This is definitely possible, but wouldn't it have been a yeasty comment rather than a bottling one. If I taste yeast then I say something tastes yeasty. Not "I taste the bottle conditioning." Maybe he was just not expressing himself well.

Well, what does "bottle conditioning" mean other than "there's yeast in them there bottles!"? I contend that it's the yeast that this person is noticing, as was noted there's a good chance it was stirred up on the trip to the shop.

I'm sorry, I missed all the post where the kegging people were telling the bottling people they were making an inferior product.

For every "cool crowd" person who pontificates that their way is the best way, there is another person who is insecure and feels the need to get offended over what they think someone else is thinking.

...or just plain insulted by narrow minded arrogance that in itself is insecure,showing that a "cool crowd" that brews AG & kegs is in every concievable way superior to the rest of us. That in itself is shallow & foolish.
I brew the way I do & bottle the way I do because that's what I enjoy & I've made it easy as can be & an enjoyable part of the process. And isn't that why we're all really here??!

Next time bring him a bottle pulled from a keg.

"Yeah, has that bottle conditioned flavor"
"That's funny, I just pulled it from the keg 30 mins ago. Maybe you're full of it?"

Elitism is part of every hobby. I highly recommend devoting approximately zero mental energy on it.

Meh, some people are dicks. Not a lot you can do about that other than not take it to heart and not be a dick yourself. **** it, have a homebrew and let it go.

Whattawort said:

I keg because, well, I'm a lazy SOB and bottling just takes too long and requires precious real estate for all the bottles. That being said, I actually prefer bottle aged homebrew over kegged. Kegged beer may look prettier, but it seems to be lacking certain qualities that are present in the bottles (at least with my beer). I find that my bottle aged beers tend to be more refined and closer to the profile I was aiming for than my kegged stuff.

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I completely agree with this and have always found bottle conditioning to be superior. Sometimes I find kegged brew is as good as bottle conditioned but never the other way around. Long live bottle conditioning! (Even though I mostly keg due to time and space constraints)

Great topic.

BreezyBrew said:

I completely agree with this and have always found bottle conditioning to be superior. Sometimes I find kegged brew is as good as bottle conditioned but never the other way around.

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It's really style dependent. Nothing better than a freshly dry hopped, well brewed IPA. Three or four weeks of bottle conditioning and it's starting to lose that wonderful aroma and flavor. Same could be said for most wheat beers. Get'um in the glass!

A quick search shows that Boulevard and Jester King naturally carbonate all of their beers.

Jester King says: "We’ve now done more comparisons than we can count between force carbonated and naturally conditioned versions of all of our beers, and we all consistently judge the naturally conditioned versions to be more flavorful, complex and interesting than their force carbonated counterparts."

Boulevard says: "All of Boulevard’s ales are bottle conditioned, an old-world brewing tradition that creates a secondary fermentation in the bottle, resulting in a beer that tastes fresher, better, longer"

Here's a blog post about naturally- vs force-carbonating. He says he's completed tests and "There is a marked difference." I like this BYO article about carbonating too.

I recently made a big brown ale that would benefit from a little aging. So I decided to add sugar and let it naturally carbonate in the keg. This forced me to avoid tapping it for at least 3 weeks. I'm probably going to hold off on tapping it until the middle of November.

I wonder if the biggest advantage of naturally carbonating is ensuring a month of age on beers that will benefit from it.

AnOldUR said:

It's really style dependent. Nothing better than a freshly dry hopped, well brewed IPA. Three or four weeks of bottle conditioning and it's starting to lose that wonderful aroma and flavor. Same could be said for most wheat beers. Get'um in the glass!

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Except for hefeweizens that are supposed to be cloudy. If you keg them the sediment will go with the first pints, and by the end of the keg you've got a crystal clear beer.

Some "bottle conditioned" commercial beers state it right on the label as a badge of honor of sorts.

To say bottle conditioned beer is inferior is a sign of beer ignorance.

I would also say the person was grasping for something to say and be "right".

I recently filled a keg, and had a few quarts left in the fermenter, right into bottles it went along with an educated guess of table sugar packets poured right in for priming, not sure I even sanitized the bottles...the beer was great and certainly as good as the kegged version.

BreezyBrew said:

I completely agree with this and have always found bottle conditioning to be superior. Sometimes I find kegged brew is as good as bottle conditioned but never the other way around. Long live bottle conditioning! (Even though I mostly keg due to time and space constraints)

Great topic.

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There is one commercial beer that I find drinkable only from a keg. Rolling Rock. While nothing special, it is terrible out of the bottle and actually not horrible if from a keg. I blame the green bottles, and the fact that the kegs are fresher and stored cold.

Then again. not bottle conditioned.

satph said:

Except for hefeweizens that are supposed to be cloudy. If you keg them the sediment will go with the first pints, and by the end of the keg you've got a crystal clear beer.

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Wheat beers are cloudy because of yeast and proteins from the wheat in suspension. If that's what you're looking for a yeast with low flocculation and a good percentage of wheat should be used. If brewed correctly your haze should not be gone after the first pour. Sure, if the keg sits long enough yeast and protien will eventually settle, but since these beers are to be drank young, that's not a problem. When you order a Hefeweizen on tap at a bar is it crystal clear? And unless your rolling your bottles before pouring, they will eventually settle also.

Good to see some pro brewers finding that natural carbonation & conditioning makes for better quality. I've gotten to where bottling is easy & fairly quick.

DrunkleJon said:

I have never noticed cidery flavors from bottling. The < 5 oz of sugar is not enough to be noticeable in a batch. The only flavors I have noticed that are contributed by bottling would be due to stirring up more yeast due to transporting.

As for kegs, you can get off flavors from them as well.

I keg for convenience. It is far easier for me to clean and sanitize one keg and the autosiphon than it is to do 2 cases of bottles, a bottling bucket, the bottling wand, autosiphon, tubing, caps...

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This right here is what bothers me about the pro-kegging crowd. I keg all my beers and will bottle the occasional batch. But I don't think kegging is neither easier nor quicker. Yes, it's quicker to get the beer INTO the keg than into 50 bottles. However, using one of those bottle tree squirter dealiers for bottles makes life WAY easier.
Also, if you do a good job of rinsing out each bottle after you pour one, all you really have to do when you're ready to fill them again is sanitize them. I sanitize the bottles while the priming sugar is boiling, it really takes on a few minutes with a bottle tree and sulfiter dealie.
So, if you factor in cleaning your beer lines, your kegs, etc, unless you're lazy and don't keep your sh*t clean, it takes as long or longer than bottling.

Lately, when bottling, I've taken to a hybrid approach where I'll use a keg as a bottling "bucket" and push the beer into bottles with co2 through a picnic tap with a wand attached to it. Works really well. Plus I can seal the keg and roll it around to evenly distribute the priming solution.

Anyway, if you do it right, bottling can be really easy, easier and cheaper than kegging. I'd bottle, but I've got all the sh*t already for kegging, plus a sweet collar that my stepdad built for me for my chest freezer. So, it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to go back at this point.
Besides, having kegged beer is nice as you can pour any amount at anytime you want. I probably drink way more than I would if it were in bottles.

But, nobody should be knocking bottled beer. There's no reason it should be any different than kegged beer and it sounds like those homebrew shop dudes don't know what the hell they're talking about.

I took a sample of my beer once to a brewery for the brewer and staff to try and I said it was an extract batch, just felt like doing an extract beer, and one of them said, "Oh, that's what that is..." What? You're kidding me dude. This was a hefe and it tasted great. Whatever, dude. Some people don't know WTF they're talking about.

Yeah,like beatin a dead horse or arguing with a brick wall.

kegs, bottles, I can't tell the difference when serving between the two. I do find kegging easier though. Which makes you a better brewer and therefore a better person.

I don't see kegging making you a better brewer than those of us that bottle. But a better person? Oh brother,you've got it bad. That response was def trolling for trouble.

unionrdr said:

I don't see kegging maiking you a better brewer than those of us that bottle. But a better person? Oh brother,you've got it bad. That response was def trolling for trouble.

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Pretty sure he was joking, I chuckled a bit.

For extra fun, ask one of these kegging elitists about cask ale. There's a good chance that they'll say that cask beer is fantastic. Then point out that it's basically a large bottle conditioning vessel and let them try to explain it.

I can say that I regularly notice differences between the same beer bottle conditioned vs. kegged. Pour me a glass of each and I'll glady pick apart the little differences between them. It may be due to freshness, how it was handled, carbonation level or just serving temperature.

Just don't ask me to tell you which is better and expect to get any meaningful information from that. It could change hour to hour depending on my mood.

It's like asking a parent which child is their favorite or asking which style of beer is the best. There is no answer because it's a question based on the false assumption that because two things are different one must be better than another.

I have to ask, though... who are these "bottle-conditioning SUCKS!" fanatics? I've been around homebrewers for a long while now, and I can't say that I've ever met someone with this attitude. Is this thread sixty responses to one single guy?

You know the type. The ones that come into a bottling question thread & say "Start kegging your beer!".

Yeah, except I can't recall any instances of someone finishing that statement with ".... because it will taste better!" It's always "... because it's easier" (which it is, objectively, I don't care what you say; one big bottle >>>>>>>>>>>> fifty little bottles.)

I’m sensing a lot of insecurity in this thread.

the_bird said:

I have to ask, though... who are these "bottle-conditioning SUCKS!" fanatics? I've been around homebrewers for a long while now, and I can't say that I've ever met someone with this attitude. Is this thread sixty responses to one single guy?

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It was two people in the last six months, as I noted in the original post, and there were a couple people who replied to this thread that prefer the taste of kegged beer to bottle conditioned. One account of an uncertified judge as well.

Honestly I am surprised that so many can taste a difference and that they prefer bottle conditioned for flavor. This information alone will keep me happily bottling my Baltic porter even after I start kegging.

kaconga said:

It was two people in the last six months, as I noted in the original post, and there were a couple people who replied to this thread that prefer the taste of kegged beer to bottle conditioned. One account of an uncertified judge as well.

Honestly I am surprised that so many can taste a difference and that they prefer bottle conditioned for flavor. This information alone will keep me happily bottling my Baltic porter even after I start kegging.

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i don't like my beer bottle conditioned. i find they don't have a crisp, clean flavor to them. hard for me to describe since i haven't bottle conditioned in 8 months. i have yet to try someone else HB so i don't really know if it's my procedures or just in general. But i don't think that that one way is better then another.

While kegging gear costs more up front (i have around $700-800 for a 3 tap system with 4 kegs), i do find that i can get a batch on tap and very drinkable in a much shorter period, don't have to store cases of bottles, less time cleaning and sanitizing. i love homebrewing but i also feel my time is worth something. so kegging in the long run allows me to save money making beer vs buying and i don't have to spend extra time bottling. i have other hobbies, a house in the country that always requires some sort of work, a full time job, wife and kids etc etc.

I've just gotten comfortable with my bottling process,gadgets & set up that get the job done in a short time. So I'll be bottling for the forseeable future...works for me.

JDGator said:

While kegging gear costs more up front (i have around $700-800 for a 3 tap system with 4 kegs), i do find that i can get a batch on tap and very drinkable in a much shorter period, don't have to store cases of bottles, less time cleaning and sanitizing. i love homebrewing but i also feel my time is worth something. so kegging in the long run allows me to save money making beer vs buying and i don't have to spend extra time bottling. i have other hobbies, a house in the country that always requires some sort of work, a full time job, wife and kids etc etc.

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IMHO, it's not a matter of what my time is worth when it comes to homebrewing, it's a matter of what i like doing, and what i don't. It doesn't matter that i spend a few hours brewing a batch, i enjoy that. It does matter that i spend a bunch of time cleaning up after brewing because that's no fun. So, I look for ways to reduce cleaning time, and don't really care about reducing brewing time right now. Cleaning and sanitizing a couple cases of bottles seems like a chore I wouldn't enjoy. I was lead to believe before I started homebrewing that kegging takes less cleaning time, but honestly, i don't know, I've never bottled a batch, and I have no interest in doing a time study on it.

So, my decision to keg is based on perceived convenience, since my belief is that both kegging and bottling produce good results, if slightly different. It has cost me considerable money in kegs and draft beer hardware, and I think a lot of people who spend that money convince themselves that they're spending it to get better beer. Personally, I stopped trying to justify personal purchases to myself a few years ago. The only justification I need is that I like what I buy. I like my cars, I liked my house, and I like my draft beer setup. In general, I'm a happy guy. If at some point I don't like the draft beer system, I'll sell it off, like I'm trying to do with the house.

TallDan said:

IMHO, it's not a matter of what my time is worth when it comes to homebrewing, it's a matter of what i like doing, and what i don't. It doesn't matter that i spend a few hours brewing a batch, i enjoy that. It does matter that i spend a bunch of time cleaning up after brewing because that's no fun. So, I look for ways to reduce cleaning time, and don't really care about reducing brewing time right now. Cleaning and sanitizing a couple cases of bottles seems like a chore I wouldn't enjoy. I was lead to believe before I started homebrewing that kegging takes less cleaning time, but honestly, i don't know, I've never bottled a batch, and I have no interest in doing a time study on it.

So, my decision to keg is based on perceived convenience, since my belief is that both kegging and bottling produce good results, if slightly different. It has cost me considerable money in kegs and draft beer hardware, and I think a lot of people who spend that money convince themselves that they're spending it to get better beer. Personally, I stopped trying to justify personal purchases to myself a few years ago. The only justification I need is that I like what I buy. I like my cars, I liked my house, and I like my draft beer setup. In general, I'm a happy guy. If at some point I don't like the draft beer system, I'll sell it off, like I'm trying to do with the house.

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+1 on doing what makes sense for you!

My decision to bottle has to do with experience doing BOTH kegging and bottling. I bottled at first, switched to kegging, but sold it all off because I like the benefits of bottling over kegging, many of which have been covered here ad nauseum, but for me includes not having a space that makes sense for a kegerator to be convenient. A beer fridge in my detached garage works great for storing bottled beer, but is too far to go to keep filling up my glass from a tap.

Whattawort said:

I keg because, well, I'm a lazy SOB and bottling just takes too long and requires precious real estate for all the bottles. That being said, I actually prefer bottle aged homebrew over kegged. Kegged beer may look prettier, but it seems to be lacking certain qualities that are present in the bottles (at least with my beer). I find that my bottle aged beers tend to be more refined and closer to the profile I was aiming for than my kegged stuff. I really am my own worst critic, but if you were to put one of my bottle aged beers and my kegged beer in front of me I could tell you which was which pretty easily. I'll usually make a session beer for the keg and have a serious beer in the bottles.

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I feel the same way.

I like kegging because I get a quicker turnaround time. For some reason, I'm always up against a timeline for my beer.

But I've noticed when I talk to non-brewers, they seemed more impressed by kegging. "Wow, you KEG your beer? That's cool!"

I'll still bottle certain things. But keg most others

I'm an odd duck. I naturally carbonate my kegs because I want that bottled conditioned taste in my kegged beers, Granted, I lose a pint or two to sediment that way, but I like it.

For me, there is nothing (and I mean NOTHING) cooler than serving my homebrew to friends out of the taps on my pub wall.

That, and my favorite beer mug is a 19oz imperial pint... can't fill it with a single 12oz, can't squeeze in a 22oz bomber.

I also like that after conditioning/cold crashing in the keg, 99% of any lingering sediment gets pushed out in the first pint or two, and nothing but clear runnings after that.

Oh, the humanity.

brewmcq said:

For me, there is nothing (and I mean NOTHING) cooler than serving my homebrew to friends out of the taps on my pub wall.

That, and my favorite beer mug is a 19oz imperial pint... can't fill it with a single 12oz, can't squeeze in a 22oz bomber.

I also like that after conditioning/cold crashing in the keg, 99% of any lingering sediment gets pushed out in the first pint or two, and nothing but clear runnings after that.

Oh, the humanity.

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And you can't pour off a quick little 2oz sample with bottling. But that's another "benefit" to kegging, but not really a big deal. I think my one and only gripe with bottling over kegging is the sediment on the bottom. It gets stirred up so easily, it's frustrating. And people always say that bottling makes it more convenient and easier to "take beers over to a buddy's house". Has anyone ever heard of a growler? It's all about preference though, I guess. Some beers need to be bottle conditioned. It's just crazy when people say that kegging will make your beer better.

Just filled 4 growlers straight from my taps... I'm not worried about oxidation or infection or carbonation escaping because all four will be GONE in the next 30 hours. Plus, I sanitized them.

brewmcq said:

For me, there is nothing (and I mean NOTHING) cooler than serving my homebrew to friends out of the taps on my pub wall.

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Well, I'll have to concede that point. It would be pretty cool to have your own micro pub in the house.

Beer on tap, wood fired pizza oven, couple cafe tables.

With the umbrellas with "Martini Porche" on them,in honour of the movie "LeMans"!! Brumos porche RULES!
When the Austrian Langheck ruled the earth!