My Tumultuous Pliny Growler Experience

[HotHandsHanon]

I would like to cover two things in this post:
#1: The shelf life of properly filled growlers.
#2: The taste of Pliny the Elder.

The story is a little lengthy but I believe it makes a good point.

It all started with a friend from high school who since moved to California and now works in Napa at a winery. Anyway, he flew in this week to for South by Southwest (SXSW), the giant annual music/film/media festival in Austin, TX. I consistently reminded him everyday the two weeks prior to him flying in to go to Russian River and procure me AT LEAST six 500ml bottles of Pliny the Elder. Long story short, he thought that getting a "giant jug" as he called it was "cooler" than bottles. Problem, or so I thought. Now I'll go through the lifespan of the growler...

03/12/12 Monday PM - Growler filled at RR.

03/13/12 Tuesday AM - Plane ride. No big deal.

Here's where it gets fun. After his plane landed, another friend of mine picked him up in the airport. Naturally, he put all of his luggage, including the growler, in the trunk of the car. Granted, it's only March in Texas, but it was a steady 80 degrees during the day outside the entire week.

Fast forward two days.

03/15/12 Thursday - I arrive in Austin from Dallas, meet up with my friends. We eventually end up talking about the beer, and I come to find it has been sitting in the trunk of a car for two days unshaded from the sun. I rush to the car and rescue the growler as if it was a kitten from a burning building.

Here's where I got stupid. Not until I searched the forums for storing growlers yesterday afternoon (Saturday), I just put the growler in a dark place at room temperature like I would my freshly bottled homebrew.

03/17/12 Saturday - Finally refrigerate the growler. It's been five days.

03/18/12 Today - SXSW is finally over and I begin my four hour trek back to Dallas. I go to the local sporting goods store and buy a cooler, fill with ice, and packed that growler like an organ transplant delivery man.

I got home a couple of hours ago, put the growler in the freezer for about 30 minutes, and popped the top hoping for the best...

Carbonation was good, no signs of oxidation, and no off flavors I could point out. According to the beer profile, it was all spot on. The picture taken was after the head settled for a while, but it started out at about two fingers.

My point of this whole story is that after all the conditions this growler went through, it could/should have been terrible or at least flat from the comments I have read pertaining to growlers from HBT due to time lapse and temperature conditions. However, I will point out, that there was ZERO head room in the growler. After initially looking over the growler when I first saw it, the outside was very sticky as they filled it to foam over. I turn the bottle upside down and no air bubbles went from the bottom to the top. I guess if bottled properly and under the right conditions, beer can last more than a few days in a growler.

As for actual taste of PTE:

It was a VERY good beer, but at the end of the day I think PTE is mostly hype. For the ABV it was super smooth and the flavors were very pleasing. I feel like I lost a minimal amount of carbonation, but as I said, couldn't find anything wrong flavor-wise.

What I take away from this experience?

#1. Growlers CAN contain beer unopened without any apparent ill effects for more than a couple days if properly filled and sanitized.

#2. Even though your friend is a wine sommelier, don't doubt yourself on what you know about beer. Give him explicit instructions next time, and for heavens sake, just make him ship you some bottles instead.

Any comments or criticisms are welcome! Thanks for reading guys/gals.

 

[dwarven_stout]

Two things:

First, when people complain about growlers losing carb, they're talking about screwtop growlers, not swingtops like the one you have there. Plenty of people bottle in swingtops, and they hold carb just fine.

Secondly, if you thought that PTE wasn't up to the hype, then leaving it in a 80 degree car trunk for 2 days damaged it irreparably. Make your friend buy you more and get the bottles this time.

 

[Teromous]

In your friend's defense, that growler is much cooler looking than the bottles. Actually it is the coolest looking glass one I've seen. That beer has gone through an ordeal to reach you!

 

[jonmohno]

Reminds me of why they origionally stared making ipa's in the first place-To endure long voyages. Glad it worked out,i was thinking at the beginning of this story that it was going to for shure end up bad. I also thought you were goin to cover how it tasted day after day upon first opening it. Cool growler-its like a geni-bottle or something.
My pliny i ordered deliverd fedx had to endure 7 days with some single digit weather for who knows how long-midwest and arrived in one piece,.
Great lamp.And is that a stripper pole,i see?

 

[HotHandsHanon]

First, when people complain about growlers losing carb, they're talking about screwtop growlers, not swingtops like the one you have there. Plenty of people bottle in swingtops, and they hold carb just fine.

Secondly, if you thought that PTE wasn't up to the hype, then leaving it in a 80 degree car trunk for 2 days damaged it irreparably. Make your friend buy you more and get the bottles this time.

#1 - True, but the beer in the growler was previously carbed, not carbonating in the growler. Don't know if that makes a difference, let me know.

#2 - Entirely plausible... Ok, very probable haha. Don't get me wrong, it was GREAT, and if the heat had something to do with it than I'm sure it'll be even better next time. I definitely agree with you there, and as he flys back today, I will be pestering him yet again for more of the life nectar in the 500ml fashion.

I also thought you were goin to cover how it tasted day after day upon first opening it. Cool growler-its like a geni-bottle or something.
My pliny i ordered deliverd fedx had to endure 7 days with some single digit weather for who knows how long-midwest and arrived in one piece,.
Great lamp.And is that a stripper pole,i see?

Well I didn't dare test the limits of the beer any longer, so I stomached as much as I could. Whether or not this will work better than just capping the growler and putting it into the fridge I don't know, but before I took my first sip I siphoned the hooch into two 12 oz. bottles (sanitized equipment and all), to the brim, and immediately capped. I don't plan on letting these sit in the fridge past this evening, but I thought it may work better than storing in the growler purely because of the head room comparatively between growler and bottle. Pointless? Maybe, but I tried to preserve for another 24 hours as best as I could.

As for the leg lamp, thanks but I wish I had the full-scale model! Alas, that isn't a stripper pole... Just another floor lamp haha. I'll post how the day two tasting comes out, hopefully I didn't ruin 24 oz. of 80 degree trunk beer!

 

[FarmerTed]

That's the lamp from A Christmas Story, lol. Did it come from Fragile, Italy?

 

[Camride]

In your friend's defense, that growler is much cooler looking than the bottles. Actually it is the coolest looking glass one I've seen. That beer has gone through an ordeal to reach you!

Seriously, that is one badass growler.

Good to hear about the growler voyage. I hadn't thought about bottling up the rest of a growler after it's opened. I'll have to do that next time I get a growler of a local beer that I really like. It's a bit too high gravity for me to knock out in one sitting, and it's never as good the next day.

 

[zacjack]

as if it was a kitten from a burning building.

That line won my vote... oh wait, we weren't voting were we?

 

[HotHandsHanon]

I hadn't thought about bottling up the rest of a growler after it's opened. I'll have to do that next time I get a growler of a local beer that I really like.

A follow up for this evening:

I cracked one of the two bottles of the remaining PTE I filled last night, and I'm pleased to say I can't notice any difference in carbonation from yesterday (unlike when storing in a growler). I think I'll save the last one for tomorrow just to see if I can take this trek one day longer.

A side note of my original tasting:

I know that keeping the beer in a 12 oz. bottle for 24 hours in no way could alter the taste of the beer in a good way. However, I must have been drunk or something last night when I initially tasted it because it was noticeably better this evening. I repeat, I know putting the leftovers into a 12 oz. bottle for 24 hours couldn't effect the flavor. I really must have been drunk and my taste buds were numb or something.

Note to self: Only do tastings of uber beers when sober.

 

[Camride]

BTW, how did you get it from the growler to the bottle? Did you just use a funnel and cap it real quick, or figure out some other better method?

 

[HotHandsHanon]

BTW, how did you get it from the growler to the bottle? Did you just use a funnel and cap it real quick, or figure out some other better method?

Well my first attempt with a large auto siphon was a no go as you can see from the narrow mouth of the growler. Instead, I took off the auto siphon and filled the siphon hose and bottle filler with bottled water and capped the open end with my thumb. From there, I took a spare cup and placed the bottle filler in there, and then quickly stuck the open end of the siphon hose into the growler. Then, I just pressed down on the bottle filler to let the water out while the beer got sucked up. When the water exited the bottle filler, it was all beer, and that's when I started to bottle. All equipment properly sanitized.

I initially thought about using a funnel, but wanted to reduce the chance of oxidation as much as I could. I know that sounds like too much work for a couple bottles, but when it's good beer, it's good beer.