[Joe T]

I came across an older video of John Kimmich talking about Heady Topper. He poured two Heady's:
Which one is 8 or 9 months old, and which one is just off the canning line?


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[theDarkSide]

I'm guessing the right one (toward the back) is off the line and the darker one is the 8 month old.  Did the same experiment myself once(totally by accident...a can got pushed to the back of the fridge) and it wasn't bad.

This looks like their Waterbury canning facility.  I used to be able to go there on a Sunday afternoon and buy a case of Heady Topper...then everyone went nuts and you couldn't find it anywhere without stalking the truck.  Better now with their Stowe plant.  The neighbors next door hated having this in Waterbury...of course idiots were parking on their lawn and blocking their driveway.

[Joe T]

 Although Kimmich insists that at 8 months it's still good, just different and I don't dispute that, I was shocked at the color difference. I was under the impression that, unlike crown caps, cans completely exclude oxygen ingress once sealed. That beer looks extremely oxidized to me. Could oxidation that significant come from just a fixed amount of oxygen sealed in at packaging or is there still some ingress in cans? In another video they showed the canning line and cans were being purged prior to filling.

[Robert]

That much oxidation 8 months out could come from just the exposure at mashing in, let alone some oxygen trapped at packaging (and most "purging" on packaging lines is imperfect, probably more so for cans because you can't really pull a vacuum on them.)  It's total, cumulative oxygen exposure over the life of the beer that matters.  (Holy crap, I'm sounding like the LOB boys!)  The Germans developed low oxygen brewhouse procedures specifically to get up to 12 months shelf life in packaged beer.  I'd say they're missing out on some really interesting flavor developments down the line! 

[thcipriani]

For some reason I couldn't see a video and I only see a picture that looks like a still from a video(?)

I found a youtube link that looks like the picture I see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amgfgU5-lhs

[Joe T]

For some reason I couldn't see a video and I only see a picture that looks like a still from a video(?)

I found a youtube link that looks like the picture I see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amgfgU5-lhs

That's the video. I only posted a screenshot, no link. Oops.