Why Is Fresh Beer Best?

Why do people drink beer? For many it’s a journey of discovery of craft and flavours, understanding different techniques from different parts of the world. For others it’s about connection with people, a touch of social lubricant for good conversation and time well spent.

Whatever the reasoning there is a unifying and universal truth; Fresh Beer is better beer.

In actuality before you crack open a beer at home, it could well have travelled hundreds of miles with varying storage conditions, lengths and temperatures before reaching your supermarket. By which point it can often have been 6-12 months since the beer was brewed.

Fresh Beer is beer in its optimum state which happens immediately at the end of the brewing cycle.

Best consumed at this point and typically holds its perfect flavour for around 3 weeks.

The importance of the freshness is often either mistaken, misunderstood or completely unheard of. During our extensive research, when trying to explain our Fresh Beer we were often met with “Isn’t supermarket beer fresh?”.

Loads of studies explore the effects on breweries exporting overseas to keep up in an increasingly competitive and globalised beer market. They found the results were the flavour of Fresh Beer deteriorating, leading to the presence of stale flavours and a decrease in the drinkability of the beer.

The significant changes in beer quality and stability were found to be also affected by the vibration during transport. This causes a rapid decrease in oxygen and an increase in a compound known as E-2-Nonenal. This compound causes a wet cardboard aroma often found in aged beers.

There is even some evidence that light exposure can affect the taste of the beer - this is partly the reason the bottles are often a darker colour.

These compromises to flavour and quality are not only caused by the competitive beer market but also the ever existing pressures from supermarkets to deliver products with a longer shelf life. Although in most other industries ‘fresh is best’ is considered a pure and simple fact amongst consumers, in the beer industry, market pressures contribute to a misguided perception by some consumers that bottled beer doesn’t really ever ‘go off’.

There are however some indicators attitudes are changing, with some larger companies displaying a ‘born on date’ as opposed to a best before; to give consumers a better understanding of how long their beer has really lived before they drink it.

However, the aim of these breweries is not to prevent the storage mishaps but to limit its effects on the flavour profile of their products.

Fresh Beer is also on the rise with more and more specialist Tap Rooms and beer festivals (for out of home drinking) and now the Pinter (for home-drinking).

Pinter Fresh Beer is naturally carbonated, unfiltered and unpasteurised and is produced and consumed from its original vessel. This is another source of taste deterioration, with the Pinter no contamination of secondary vessels means no negative impact from moving to cans, bottles or kegs.

The Pinter ensures there are no taste compromises made in delivering Fresh Beer. Tapped by you, moments after you’ve finished brewing and you can’t get fresher than that.