Packaging, storage and serving
Bottles, kegs, carbonation, glasses and serving. 17 terms.
Beer glasses
- The glass affects foam, aroma and temperature. A tall wheat beer glass leaves room for the big head, a tulip or chalice concentrates the aroma, a slim Stange keeps Kölsch fresh. In Belgium almost every beer has its own glass. Always rinse glasses free of grease, otherwise the foam collapses.
Bottle conditioning
- Fermentation in the sealed bottle after bottling. The yeast ferments the added priming sugar and produces the carbonation. Usually takes 2 weeks at 18–22 °C (64–72 °F).
Bottling
- Filling the beer into bottles after fermentation, only once the hydrometer has shown the same reading for 2–3 days. Add the priming sugar, don’t fill the bottles right to the top (leave about a finger’s width of air) and cap them straight away.
Can
- Cans protect beer completely from light and oxygen and are light to carry. They are lined on the inside, so the beer does not taste of metal. The first beer can went on sale in the USA in 1935.
Carbonation
- CO₂ in the finished beer. In bottle conditioning the yeast produces it from a little sugar added at bottling.
Draught system
- Used to serve beer from a keg. CO₂ from a gas cylinder pushes the beer through the line to the tap. Clean the lines regularly, otherwise deposits form that spoil the taste.
Keg
- A stainless steel keg instead of bottles, often a 19 L (about 5 gal) Cornelius keg. The beer is carbonated with CO₂ from a gas cylinder and served fresh from the tap. It saves washing bottles and the beer is ready sooner, but the setup costs more.
Mass
- The Bavarian one-litre beer mug, usually made of glass today and of stoneware in the past. Standard in beer gardens and at the Oktoberfest.
Pasteurisation
- Briefly heating beer to kill yeast and bacteria so that it keeps longer. Named after Louis Pasteur, who showed in 1876 that microorganisms spoil beer. Unpasteurised beer often tastes fresher but does not keep as long.
Pouring correctly
- Tilt the glass and let the beer run down the side, then hold it upright at the end so a nice head forms. With bottle-conditioned beer, leave the yeast sediment in the bottle, except for Hefeweizen: there the yeast is swirled up and poured in too.
Priming sugar
- Sugar (or wort) added at bottling so that carbonation forms in the bottle. The carbonation calculator shows the right amount. Too much can make bottles burst.
Real ale (cask ale)
- Traditional British cask beer: it continues to mature in the cask, is not filtered and is served without added CO₂, usually with a handpump and at cellar temperature. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has been fighting for it since 1971.
Serving temperature
- Too cold hides the aromas, too warm makes the beer taste flat. Rule of thumb: pale lagers and wheat beer 6–8 °C (43–46 °F), pale ale and Kölsch 8–10 °C (46–50 °F), dark and strong beers 10–14 °C (50–57 °F).
Shelf life and ageing
- Most beers taste best fresh, especially hoppy ones. Stored cool and dark they keep for many months. Strong, dark beers such as doppelbock, barley wine or imperial stout can mature for years and become smoother.
Spunding
- Finishing fermentation in a pressure-rated vessel fitted with a spunding valve. The valve holds the pressure and the beer keeps its own CO₂, so no priming sugar is needed.
Stange
- Slim, cylindrical glass. In Switzerland you order “eine Stange”, meaning 3 dl (about 10.1 fl oz) of draught beer. In Cologne the 0.2-litre Stange is the glass for Kölsch.
Swing-top bottles and crown caps
- The two common closures. Swing-top bottles can be closed again and again without tools; replace the rubber seals now and then. Crown caps need a capper, but the bottles are cheap and easy to find.