Conditioning beer - To bottle or not to bottle

[cwrw]

Can anyone give me a pointer regarding the following please.
If you've made your brew and then require maturing for a 8 week period at 4C for a Vienna style beer or a belgian ale (4 weeks) will it be detremental to the taste of the beer if you primed and bottled prior to doing this, and how much can you deviate from the given conditioning temperatures? :hmm:
Many thanks.

 

[phettebs]

This one is subjective. I think you'll get as many opinions as there are brewers. For me, it comes down to ease of use. I've done both ways. If I have to "lager" something near 0, it's easier to put a 5 gallon carboy into the refrigerator than to try to stuff 2 cases of bottles into it. So I do that in bulk.

Even my Belgian beers I will age for a while in bulk before bottling. I don't know that one way vs. the other would be detrimental to the taste. It depends on what your goals are for the beer.

As far as deviating from the recommended temp, it depends on the beer. If it's a lager and you are "supposed" to condition at 4C for 1 month and you condition at 20C instead, that would give you a vastly different, and in my opinion not so good, flavor profile. As for an ale, you have much more latitude. How much? I don't know. Again, it depends on the beer. Belgian beers do much better at warmer temps during the conditioning process. It also depends on your tastes and the flavor profile you want to achieve.

Not sure if that helps. Hopefully someone else will be along to give a completely different opinion than mine! :

Barry