What’s Better For Beer: Bottles Or Cans?

It’s an age-old debate, whether a beer’s taste fares better in bottles or cans. And now scientists have taken the question on…with complicated results.

Here’s the deal…

In a study on ‘Food Science and Technology’ sponsored by the American Chemical Society, researchers decided to dig deeper into how a beer’s stability is affected by its packaging, what’s better for beer, bottles or cans?

The research focused primarily on how the beer’s packaging affected its longevity and freshness, which in turn impacts a beer’s taste.

And the outcome of this research was described as “complicated.” It depends on the style of beer that is packaged in those cans or bottles.

In the study researchers noted “that in addition to water and ethanol, beer contains thousands of flavor compounds, which are metabolites produced by yeast, hops and other ingredients. When beer is packaged, its chemical reactions break down some of those components, while forming others that are less flavorful.

This is how the study was conducted according to the Drinks Business …

Cans and brown bottles of Amber Ale and India Pale Ales which were provided by New Belgium Brewing, were chilled for a month and then kept at room temperature for five months simulating typical storage conditions.

“Every two weeks, researchers analyzed the metabolites in newly-opened containers. During this time, the concentration of certain metabolites in amber ale differed significantly depending on whether it was packaged in a bottle or can.”

In the end researchers found that IPAs proved to be the most most resilient beer-style.

Thanks to their heavy concentrations of hops, IPAs were more stable no matter the packaging, while Amber, Brown and more malt-forward brews lasted longer when they were bottled rather than canned.

Researchers also found “that the metabolic profile of ALL the beers they studied showed an evolution of flavor over time, whether packaged in a can or bottle, but that ale in cans did show the greatest variation.”

Like we said, the results of this particular study were, well, complicated…