Bottles V Keg

[Wez]

Which wins guys and why? What do you see as the pro's and con's?

I have bottled beer that keeps it's flavour and tastes fresh as a daisy. I like the convenience of kegging and serving through a beer engine but the beer looses so much in a keg, promonent hops in the bottle seem almost non existant in a keg after a while.

It's odd that with comercial beers it's the other way around IMO - bottled beers are bad compared to kegged beers...

What do you guys think, am I alone in this view?

 

[A T]

I agree wit you Wez, my bottled beers are always better. I mentioned this somewhere on the forum a few weeks ago but came away feeling like it was something i was doing wrong with the cornies. I have been bottling a lot more lately and enjoying nicer beer I'll be interested to see what the other members think

 

[Vossy1]

IMO

Bottles stay fresher tasting than kegs, but they can never replicate the smooth taste of a well kept kegged beer, which could also be something to do with carbonation levels in bottles.
I've now come to the opinion that the two methods can never be compared in all honesty.
I've made the same beer in the past, bottled and kegged it, and come serving you'd swear they were different beers

I've said in the past, that if I could be bothered, I'd bottle all my beers. I personally prefer a sharper taste to my beers, I'm also pretty keen on hop aroma, both of which are hard to do in the keg, though dry hopping is an option.

 

[Wez]

Glad you mentioned dry hopping I think i'll try that with my next kegged beer, I'm also thinking of the horses for courses route :

Pale hoppy beer - bottle it
Darker less hoppy - keg it

 

[brewzone]

I have never really bottled a lot of My beer cus I can't wait long enough for it to come into condition.

However the one time when I lagered some lagerish brew I did and stored it in the cellar for around three months I swear it was the best thing I'd ever tasted.

Corny kegging all beers at the moment for convenience.

 

[russt1969]

I bottle my "keepers". I'm still on some Black Bat that I brewed 4/02/2006 and it's gone through some real changes. Its now as smooth as anything I've ever drunk and also the maltyness has come through more. Last year it was more Hoppy!!
I also like to Keg. The only thing I think I've noticed it that my Beer Engine seems to take some of the flavour away. I poured one through a tap and one through the Engine and the tap one had more flavour to it.
Anyone else think this, or was it just me being mad!!!! ?

Russ

 

[Wez]

I agree with the Beer Engine thing, I've started over hopping beers that I serve through mine to compensate.

 

[Aleman]

I'll agree that if you bottle a beer and keg it the bottle will keep more of the younger flavours, but given maturation the keg will win out.

Most of the beers we try (And probably the majority we brew ourselves) are treated as running beers . . . fermented and shipped out to the pub then drunk. Very few beers are treated 'properly' that is fermented then transferred to a cask, and allowed to come into condition in the cask, before being served/bottled . . . I am sure that if we were to treat our beer in this way, the differences between the bottle and keg would be much much less pronounced.

I'm currently in the process of writing a book review for a new beer styles book, and most beers that we brew would be classed as mild in 'old' parlance . . . meaning not stale or 'stored'.

I'm now bottling 9L from each batch, by taking the beer from the FV into a purged 9L corny with fining solution added. Then I use the beer Gun to bottle it. it works well.

If when using your beer engine you have a sparkler attached ('northern' style) then you will need to ove rhop the beer to account for the loss of hop notes when serving, If you remove the sparkler and serve the ale 'southern' style (headless :) ) then hop normally

 

[mysterio]

I agree with most of the above. If you want a beer with hop aroma and you keg it, aroma hop additions in the kettle aren't enough and will barely last a few days in the keg, you have to dry hop. German lagers are great in the keg, because these beers aren't hoppy and are generally crystal clear. I find myself brewing mostly malt focussed beers now because i'm frustrated with the loss of hoppiness.

I remember trying one of Wez's beers and it had great Styrian hop character that you can't get in the keg - it was bottle conditioned. Look at commercial beers that have great hop flavour & aroma, like Sierra Nevada - bottle conditioned again.

I like the idea of bottling a few litres and letting it age. I might invest in one of those Blichmann beer guns.