When you enter the wine section of the supermarket, when you want to buy a bottle of beer, will you choose canned beer or bottled beer? However, most people do not think this way when buying, and everything depends on chance. But, for beer lovers, the two are very different! As a result, what to bottle beer has been a constant debate between can reformers and bottle conservatives.
This is because beer is an alcoholic beverage made by germinating cereal crops, hydrolyzing starch, and fermenting to produce sugar. Most beer manufacturers also add hops, herbs, or fruits at different stages of the brewing process to change the flavor, giving each beer A unique flavor of beer. These flavors include taste, aroma, color, clarity and texture, each of which plays an important role in how people enjoy beer.
However, many factors can affect the chemical composition of beer after being transported thousands of miles from the brewery to the tavern or supermarket, such as temperature fluctuations, travel bumps, oxygen and natural metabolism. Therefore, the way beers are packaged determines how well they are protected.
Beer cans are generally made of aluminum and are coated on the inside with a thin layer of polymer (usually epoxy) to protect the liquid from metal contamination and to protect the aluminum from corrosion. The can lid forms an airtight seal with the can body, but due to its weak structure, the air before the aluminum can is sealed cannot be completely removed by vacuum, so the aluminum can easily slips into oxygen during the packaging process. The thinner aluminum alloy has poor heat insulation. At high temperature, the beer will release gas and expand, which will affect the taste and the stability of canned beer is poor. In contrast, beer bottles made of brown glass have high hardness and stronger materials, are less prone to deformation and chemical reactions, and have better heat insulation and strong stability, but there is still a risk of direct light.
In 2015, the packaging field of beer was divided into 20% canned and 80% bottled. By 2020, this ratio will rise to 80% canned and 20% bottled. Canned packaging has achieved a shocking counterattack. Is this scientific? Is it canned or bottled? The researchers are going to do an experiment to see.
Colorado State University researchers Kathryn Fromuth and Jacquelin Chaparro bought the same batch of IPA and APA from New Belgium Brewing Company, the two wines were packaged in aluminum cans and brown wine In the bottle, the storage conditions of commercially available beer were imitated: 30 days at refrigerated storage (3°C), followed by 150 days at room temperature (20°C). Then, every two weeks over a six-month period, the researchers opened a can and a bottle of both styles of beer and analyzed their metabolites to see how the can and bottle beer break down or form new compounds during aging . The study was published in ACS Food Science & Technology.
It was found that: APA showed significant metabolic differences among different packages. Specifically, bottled APA maintained a higher concentration of esters. Esters are compounds produced by yeast metabolism, which can give beer a fruity flavor, but at the same time, esters are very volatile. Therefore, the researchers inferred that this difference in APA was due to the poor sealing of cans, and the beer metabolites and their stability were significantly affected by the type of packaging.
In contrast, there was much less variation in metabolites for canned and bottled IPA. The researchers speculate that this difference is due to the high levels of antioxidant polyphenols in IPA. Due to their antioxidant properties, polyphenols help lock flavor compounds into the beer by preventing oxidation. Although the two different brewing styles of APA and IPA have put hops in their recipes, IPA is undoubtedly the beer with higher hops. Of course, this is also closely related to the history of IPA brewing.
Although IPA (India Pale Ale) is called India Pale Ale, its original origin is not in India, but in England like many other beers. In the 18th century, Britain traded beer extensively to colonies around the world. Due to the shaking and tropical temperature conditions during sea transportation, the taste of beer that was more suitable for drinking in the temperate maritime climate of the original place was destroyed to a certain extent. Beer shipped to India was often It has spoiled before landing. Due to the lack of aseptic and refrigeration technology, brewers add a large amount of hops, and use the hop resin α-acid and β-acid produced in the cone to kill harmful microorganisms and prolong the storage time.
There are many factors that winemakers have to consider when deciding whether to pack in cans or bottles. For example, brewers must consider the cost of their product and shipping methods. Because glass bottles are heavier and require stronger secondary packaging, they can be more expensive to ship. On the other hand, aluminum cans can be recycled twice, and the recycling rate is relatively high, while the environmental waste and recycling costs generated during glass production are relatively high. Perhaps, there is never a correct answer to the canned vs. bottled debate, and the taste of beer may have changed since the packaging!
