[narcout]

I wonder what the oxygen ingress is for beers that are corked and caged. 

[Big Monk]

I wonder what the oxygen ingress is for beers that are corked and caged.

These is some documentation out there in regards to wine that goes into some of the specifics but in all studies i've read, natural cork allows a significant amount of oxygen ingress.

[reverseapachemaster]

We need to make a distinction here before the dialogue back and forth gets distorted: Just because Bilsch chose to dump the handful of bottles he saved as controls due to the fact that HIS sensory analysis of the beer showed fault, doesn't mean that every other brewer in the same situation would have done that also. The main goal was to see if the storage method mitigated cap ingress, and to his taste buds it did.

You're rewriting his results to make them unassailable but it makes the results indefensible.

His subjective analysis of the beers is the only data available on the distinction of the beers. We can't know objectively what he tasted, only his descriptions and the berth between the good and bad results. If you're saying we can't trust the description of the control beer or the distinction between the descriptions of each beer then we can't trust the description of the test beer and we can't trust that the berth between the two is accurate either, not even within his subjective analysis. I agree that his opinions of the beers are not objective facts; but if the descriptions are not even accurate to his opinions then you're stuck with no reliable data.

If the descriptions are so open to flexibility on the basis of what another person tastes then we can equally rewrite his conclusions to say the difference between the beer is so marginal that it makes no sense to try to do more about oxygen ingress--because maybe the difference between great and drain pour for him is marginal and we just can't know which is true. If the data can be so easily rewritten to support diametrically opposite conclusions then the data has no value and as a result, neither do the conclusions drawn from it.

The data is either manufactured to confirm a conclusion or so wholly unreliable that it must be discounted altogether. Either the descriptions are accurate to his tasting or inaccurate. It isn't both.

This isn't an indictment of all bottled beer based on this single data point. It is true, however, that many commercial beers going through the distribution chain are degraded after even 90 days. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a 3 month of Weihenstephan, I just recognize that there are characteristic oxidation flavors happening at that time interval where I can get it. 

The only fair comparator would be for Bilsch to confirm whether he thinks that three month of Weihenstephan is also a drain pour because he's the only one that knows what he tasted in his control beer.

If he says it isn't a drain pour then there's a shortfall in the LODO bottling process to work out. If it is a drain pour then we just accept that, at least for him, beer has less than a three month shelf life even under the best conditions and people make brewing and packaging decisions within that contention.

Cap ingress is a fact. The degree to which each person interprets the flavor hit is different. We should not conflate Bilsch's subjective opinion with fact. His opinion does, however, align with what many of us have tasted after bottle spunding, i.e. muted hop aromas over time, loss of the fresh malt flavor we try hard to preserve, etc. The experiment was conducted to test a hypothesis: will storage conditions affect cap ingress? In that light, it was a success, because it gave us a control to base further explorations on.

There's no disagreement that cap ingress occurs or that oxygen causes staling.

[hopfenundmalz]

So the graph you linked is nice, but it just tells us the obvious: you need to beat the hell out of a beer to get it to start noticably staling, i.e. “Stage C”.

I guess I just don't understand what you are saying. If it isn't noticeable, then who cares?

What i'm saying is this: Bamforth is talking about stereotype oxidation flavors: cardboard, skunk, etc. What we are typical talking about is subtle flavor loss experienced by everyone, even us, i.e. loss of hop aroma and flavor, malt profile changes, etc.

The breakdown here is when people think we are telling them that they are making wet cardboard, skunked vinegar beer, which we are most certainly not. Everyone here, especially those viewing and responding to our posts is savvy enough to know that there is more nuance and subtlety involved.

I like discussion and don't want people on the defensive. That doesn't help anyone. With that said, everyone, including us, needs to be honest about faults and interested in fixing them and improving. Or maybe they don't. Far be it for from me to tell anyone how they should brew or what they should be interested in. YMMV, but more information is always better than less (IMO).

Skunk is lightstruck.

[Big Monk]

So the graph you linked is nice, but it just tells us the obvious: you need to beat the hell out of a beer to get it to start noticably staling, i.e. “Stage C”.

I guess I just don't understand what you are saying. If it isn't noticeable, then who cares?

What i'm saying is this: Bamforth is talking about stereotype oxidation flavors: cardboard, skunk, etc. What we are typical talking about is subtle flavor loss experienced by everyone, even us, i.e. loss of hop aroma and flavor, malt profile changes, etc.

The breakdown here is when people think we are telling them that they are making wet cardboard, skunked vinegar beer, which we are most certainly not. Everyone here, especially those viewing and responding to our posts is savvy enough to know that there is more nuance and subtlety involved.

I like discussion and don't want people on the defensive. That doesn't help anyone. With that said, everyone, including us, needs to be honest about faults and interested in fixing them and improving. Or maybe they don't. Far be it for from me to tell anyone how they should brew or what they should be interested in. YMMV, but more information is always better than less (IMO).

Skunk is lightstruck.

Nice catch Jeff, thank you.

[Bilsch]

The only fair comparator would be for Bilsch to confirm whether he thinks that three month of Weihenstephan is also a drain pour because he's the only one that knows what he tasted in his control beer. If he says it isn't a drain pour then there's a shortfall in the LODO bottling process to work out. If it is a drain pour then we just accept that, at least for him, beer has less than a three month shelf life even under the best conditions and people make brewing and packaging decisions within that contention.

If the descriptions are so open to flexibility on the basis of what another person tastes then we can equally rewrite his conclusions to say the difference between the beer is so marginal that it makes no sense to try to do more about oxygen ingress--because maybe the difference between great and drain pour for him is marginal and we just can't know which is true. If the data can be so easily rewritten to support diametrically opposite conclusions then the data has no value and as a result, neither do the conclusions drawn from it.

To my taste 3 or even 6 month old Weihenstephan generally isn't something that I would dump. But then again they don't make a Kölsch that I'm aware of so it's not a good comparison in this situation. IMO kölschbier, and helles to a slightly lesser extent, are very delicate and easy to damage. I have been to Cologne many times and when fresh their namesake beer is sublime. On the other hand bottles sourced here of say Früh or Gaffel are usually always damaged to the point drinking them is difficult. I despise herbstoff and in some low bitterness beers, like Kölsch, that flavor is overpowering and has nowhere to hide. That being said you can understand why I chose to do the test on this beer. And yes, I dump more beer then the average person because I am picky.
 
It seems most everyone here can agree about the existence of cap ingress and the fact bottled beers will eventually succumb to oxidation past the point of being drinkable. We probably can also agree that said period of time will vary greatly due to individual tastes. So the most useful takeaway from this test should be that there is simple way to delay oxidation in your bottles, regardless of what you believe that taste to be.

[BrewBama]

Arguments about staleness, in an odd twist of irony, seemingly never get old. We need to find a way to capture that so we can add it to our beer.

I'd say discussion is more an apt term. If you call something an argument for long enough it will eventually become one. 

Here's the evidence I am using to support my use of the word "Argument"

I served time (that's what it felt like) as a philosophy student and in law school.  I'm with Jim on the formal definition of "argument!"  What the rest of you are referring to is formally called a "b****fest" or a "catfight." 

Concur. It’s part of the Art of Manliness. https://www.artofmanliness.com/2011/05/26/classical-rhetoric-101-logical-fallacies/


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[Richard]

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

[Robert]

Arguments about staleness, in an odd twist of irony, seemingly never get old. We need to find a way to capture that so we can add it to our beer.

I'd say discussion is more an apt term. If you call something an argument for long enough it will eventually become one. 

Here's the evidence I am using to support my use of the word "Argument"

I served time (that's what it felt like) as a philosophy student and in law school.  I'm with Jim on the formal definition of "argument!"  What the rest of you are referring to is formally called a "b****fest" or a "catfight." 

Concur. It’s part of the Art of Manliness. https://www.artofmanliness.com/2011/05/26/classical-rhetoric-101-logical-fallacies/


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Dude, that link could have saved me a year of college!  Except there was no interewebs back in the day.... Anywho, it should probably go up on the Rules of the Forum.  Suggested reading section needed.

[klickitat jim]

I snickered at Reductio ad Hitlerum. You know who else hated oxidized beer???

[BrewBama]

LOL.


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[Big Monk]

You can always count on the AHA forum for a good laugh. 

[Wilbur]

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

This just hit the next level.

[hopfenundmalz]

The only fair comparator would be for Bilsch to confirm whether he thinks that three month of Weihenstephan is also a drain pour because he's the only one that knows what he tasted in his control beer. If he says it isn't a drain pour then there's a shortfall in the LODO bottling process to work out. If it is a drain pour then we just accept that, at least for him, beer has less than a three month shelf life even under the best conditions and people make brewing and packaging decisions within that contention.

If the descriptions are so open to flexibility on the basis of what another person tastes then we can equally rewrite his conclusions to say the difference between the beer is so marginal that it makes no sense to try to do more about oxygen ingress--because maybe the difference between great and drain pour for him is marginal and we just can't know which is true. If the data can be so easily rewritten to support diametrically opposite conclusions then the data has no value and as a result, neither do the conclusions drawn from it.

To my taste 3 or even 6 month old Weihenstephan generally isn't something that I would dump. But then again they don't make a Kölsch that I'm aware of so it's not a good comparison in this situation. IMO kölschbier, and helles to a slightly lesser extent, are very delicate and easy to damage. I have been to Cologne many times and when fresh their namesake beer is sublime. On the other hand bottles sourced here of say Früh or Gaffel are usually always damaged to the point drinking them is difficult. I despise herbstoff and in some low bitterness beers, like Kölsch, that flavor is overpowering and has nowhere to hide. That being said you can understand why I chose to do the test on this beer. And yes, I dump more beer then the average person because I am picky.
 
It seems most everyone here can agree about the existence of cap ingress and the fact bottled beers will eventually succumb to oxidation past the point of being drinkable. We probably can also agree that said period of time will vary greatly due to individual tastes. So the most useful takeaway from this test should be that there is simple way to delay oxidation in your bottles, regardless of what you believe that taste to be.

Herbstoff is something I can pick up easily. Traveling around Franconia, one runs into small older breweries that have it in their Helles. Locally I get it in many beers such as Kölsch style beers.

My wife has an excellent palate for most flavors. I think she may be blind to this one. She will get a beer, say it is really good, and I taste it make a face, and it is oxidized. Bilsch, have you had similar experiences with tasters not getting Herbstoff?

Everyone is blind to some flavor it seems. We have a friend that is blind to chlorophenols, confirmed with heavily spiked beer.

[brewinhard]

We need to make a distinction here before the dialogue back and forth gets distorted: Just because Bilsch chose to dump the handful of bottles he saved as controls due to the fact that HIS sensory analysis of the beer showed fault, doesn't mean that every other brewer in the same situation would have done that also. The main goal was to see if the storage method mitigated cap ingress, and to his taste buds it did.

You're rewriting his results to make them unassailable but it makes the results indefensible.

His subjective analysis of the beers is the only data available on the distinction of the beers. We can't know objectively what he tasted, only his descriptions and the berth between the good and bad results. If you're saying we can't trust the description of the control beer or the distinction between the descriptions of each beer then we can't trust the description of the test beer and we can't trust that the berth between the two is accurate either, not even within his subjective analysis. I agree that his opinions of the beers are not objective facts; but if the descriptions are not even accurate to his opinions then you're stuck with no reliable data.

If the descriptions are so open to flexibility on the basis of what another person tastes then we can equally rewrite his conclusions to say the difference between the beer is so marginal that it makes no sense to try to do more about oxygen ingress--because maybe the difference between great and drain pour for him is marginal and we just can't know which is true. If the data can be so easily rewritten to support diametrically opposite conclusions then the data has no value and as a result, neither do the conclusions drawn from it.

The data is either manufactured to confirm a conclusion or so wholly unreliable that it must be discounted altogether. Either the descriptions are accurate to his tasting or inaccurate. It isn't both.

This isn't an indictment of all bottled beer based on this single data point. It is true, however, that many commercial beers going through the distribution chain are degraded after even 90 days. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a 3 month of Weihenstephan, I just recognize that there are characteristic oxidation flavors happening at that time interval where I can get it. 

 beer has less than a three month shelf life even under the best conditions and people make brewing and packaging decisions within that contention.

Yes. Exactly. Ever have a Stone Enjoy by IPA?

I for one, plan to use this experiment's information strictly for storing beergunned bottles for comps that may sit for a couple weeks at home prior to me shipping them out. It seems like a great way to get a few comps in a row bottled for in advance while still maintaining freshness prior to putting them in the hands of others.