What can make bottled beer go bad?

[beerlover89]

I recently took a coach trip over to Belgium from the UK, and I bought a suitcase load of beer back with me. I noticed that some of the beers don't taste as good as they should do. They seem flatter and the taste isn't as fresh.

The beers I bought were sitting in my warm hotel room for 2 or 3 days, could that be a factor?

They were also crammed into a suitcase lying flat on their side. Could the vibrations from the journey have damaged them in any way?

What are some common things that can make beer go bad during storage/transportation?

 

[TahoeRy]

What a bummer! Maybe the heat spoiled them. That's about all I could think of. Could of been things that happened to them prior to your purchase though as well.

 

[homebrewdad]

You'd need some extended heat for them to go bad. Drastic temperature shifts (cold one day, hot the next, then cold again) would be worse for the beer than just a couple of days at higher temps.

Being on their sides might stir up any trub in the bottles (assuming these are bottle conditioned beers), but some fridge time will fix that.

Typically, a sealed bottle of beer will last a LONG time.

 

[feinbera]

If it were homebrew, I'd say you've got a bad seal on your caps that's letting carbonation out and oxygen in -- I lost half of my second and to-date best batch that way. But that seems far-fetched for commercial brews.