3 Ways To Ensure That The Beer You’re Drinking Tastes As Good As It Can

We try not to get to geeky here at American Craft Beer. We view beer as a good time think beer snobbery is a total buzzkill.

That said there are realities the impact that beer that you’re drinking and ways to ensure that it tastes as good as possible.

Fresh Beer Always Tastes Best

A beer’s freshness is critical to its taste. Fresh beer provides a spectrum of taste that simply diminish over time. And the importance of checking a beer’s ‘use by’ date, when you’re chasing down beer at retail can’t be underestimated.

Hop-forward beers lose their vitality even more quickly and sadly at 30 days are so much less than what they once were. And if you happen upon a beer that was bottled 90 days or more, run like a dog, but not before you make it clear to the retailer that you’re not spending good money on OLD beer.

Use The Right Beer Glassware

We used to dismiss overt attention to special beer glassware as elitist bullshit and the desire to make “beer culture” more like “wine culture,” but we were naïve and wrong.

Drinking a certain beer style in glassware designed to showcases that beer’s ambiance, aroma and distant qualities only heightens one’s drinking experience – and if that makes you a ‘geek,’ then whatever…

And remember plastic glasses are for urine samples – not beer.

Your Beer’s Temperature Matters

Back in the day it was all about ice cold beer – but that too is a bogus misconception. And some suggest that beer should be served slightly warmer that a margarita (although we’re not sure we’d go this far or even if there is universal agreement on that cocktail’s correct temperature).

Lighter beers are generally severed at lower temperatures and bigger and heavier beers largely are served up at higher temperatures.

And even though a slightly warmer beer will afford you a broader spectrum of taste and experience, there are of course limits to this concept.

Beer isn’t soup and should always remain a refreshment.