Letters Mother always said never trust a professor of beer-ology. Or, she certainly would have if she wasn't drunk all the time.

Brew fans were shocked and appalled (Shocked. And. Appaled.) when a Register report on a UC Davis beer lecture made a sweeping judgment that could turn any beer nut sour.

The offending sentence (and lager fans may wish to turn away now):

"The best time to drink a beer is immediately after it's been bottled."

Our readers responded in turn:

*gasp* You must drink nothing but soy milk!

Beer best immediately after bottled? Maybe for the mass-produced US horse piss a la Bud or Coors.

Any homebrewer will be able to tell you that a good beer gains from a little bit of aging. 30-180(!) days of settling, depending, can do wonders!

That's not even counting wheat beers (such as Bavarian Weizens) that actually rely on continued bottle fermentation. Drink that right after bottling? Yuck!

To your health!

Mike

You need to go back to the professor for some education.

Most true good beers are bottle aged. They actually suck when first bottled Even most average home brews need 4 to 6 weeks and improve to 6 months Great beers like Stone Mountain Vertical are recommended to be aged 12 years Thomas Hardy brags that his ale has been judged as great after even 25 years

Your above quote is only true if you only drink things like Coors Lite

Ken S.

Only if your foreign brew is a nasty pasteurised thing. If it's a good bottle conditioned beer it's probably better months or years after bottling as it'll need time to mature. Like wine the flavour will be affected by the storage condition over this time, possibly more so since there is live yeast in the bottle. Of course this makes absolute consistency more or less impossible, but a little variation is a small price to pay for a vast improvement in flavour.

Al

hahaha, you crazy fool!

That is why local ale is by far the best! (you lager drinkers should be shot - in the nads)

Dan C.

Your article on beer, whilst amusing, was also slightly off in terms of beer being best when fresh. That might apply to some of the commercial american bottled brands but many european bitters and ales benefit from having time to mature.

Home brewed beers certainly get better with age and improve for up to a year from when they were barrelled or bottled. Similarly bottlo conditioned beers benefit in the same way.

Recently a cache of beers over 140 years old were found in an old celler of the Worthington brewery in Burton-on-Trent, UK. They were all drinkable and many were compared to aged wines in terms of their complexity and maturity.

Read all about it here

David B.