Entering lagered beer into a competition

[brewshki]

Hey everyone,

I have recently been entering competitions and am loving getting some food objective feedback. I have one beer that I have been doing pretty well with and wanted to enter soon, but I foolishly put that last few bottles into the fridge. This made me think that I can't just pull them out and take them to the drop off point right? Taking them out of the fridge would cause lots is damage correct? Beyond this dilemma, now I am really curious how people enter beers that have been lagered. Some beers obviously do well with some cold aging, but is this impossible for competitions? Most of my beers are stored at 68 F so it doesn't really matter yet, but I plan on doing lots of competitions and would love some advice for the future.

Thanks,

Johnny

 

[Qhrumphf]

Taking a beer that's cold and warming it up won't intrinsically damage it, and doing it once or twice isn't a big deal. If you're doing it constantly back and forth, that can hasten staling of the beer and artificially age it, often not in a good way. But it's not an overnight process. And if your process is good and you allow as little oxygen access post fermentation as possible, the impact should be completely unnoticeable unless you go to that extreme level multiple times.

 

[brewshki]

Taking a beer that's cold and warming it up won't intrinsically damage it, and doing it once or twice isn't a big deal. If you're doing it constantly back and forth, that can hasten staling of the beer and artificially age it, often not in a good way. But it's not an overnight process. And if your process is good and you allow as little oxygen access post fermentation as possible, the impact should be completely unnoticeable unless you go to that extreme level multiple times.

Awesome. Thank you. So to give you a real life example, I have three bottles of a hefe in the fridge. I could theoretically take them out and stick them in my fermentation chamber to warm back up to about 68 F?

 

[Yooper]

Awesome. Thank you. So to give you a real life example, I have three bottles of a hefe in the fridge. I could theoretically take them out and stick them in my fermentation chamber to warm back up to about 68 F?

Sure. That's what is going to happen to them at the comp also. Or while the beer is shipped or whatever. You don't want to store them at 95 degrees for a month, but taking beer out of the fridge is absolutely fine.

one time, a helpful clerk explained to me, "Beer needs to stay cold once it's chilled or it gets skunky". Well, she was totally wrong. That's not true.

Just don't abuse them by leaving them in your car trunk on a hot day for long periods of time. They will be fine.

 

[Qhrumphf]

"Beer needs to stay cold once it's chilled or it gets skunky".

That one's up there with "darker beer is stronger", in that it's so absolutely ludicrous, yet still spouted by people who really should know better. Granted I've never known a brewer to say either of those things, but heard it from plenty of self-described craft beer types.

 

[brewshki]

Just for my education at this point, it is really more of high temperatures for long periods of time that will be bad for it right? I just want to make sure I am not one of those people.

 

[DurtyChemist]

I know a local guy who had to send his IPA to Minnesota or something like that a month before the competition for NHC. HE was worried about the aroma changing. I guess if AHA isn't worried about beer changing flavors being mailed across the country I wouldn't worry about it being mailed a State or two over. I'd expect them to open the bottles when the mail arrived, keep them labeled, inventory them and place them in a fridge.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Just for my education at this point, it is really more of high temperatures for long periods of time that will be bad for it right? I just want to make sure I am not one of those people.

High temps will stale faster than low temps, yes. Room temp is alright but not ideal for long term storage. Hot should be avoided.

However, temperature swings will also accelerate staling. That's where the heating-cooling-heating-cooling potential problem comes. If it's done gradually, and not done repeatedly it's not an issue.