Last week, WetRock, Brett and me met up a Hollingsheads for a little thirst quenching and this topic came up. Just before WetRock and I left, we started talking about corks. I have never smelled TCA on a beer. We asked the owner who has been around beer for a long time. He had never heard of TCA. Not surprising since even some wine geeks don’t know what it is. So the owner then called over the guy who knows everything about beer. “Wait here and I get a guy who will know”. So the expert came over and explained bottle conditioning and why the bottle needs a cork. Nice enough but again, the expert had never heard of TCA/Corked.
So does anyone here have actual info on this. I was told to email Vinnie which I may do but thought I would check here first.
I spoke with the folk at Ommegang about this, and they have never seen, or heard of, corked beer. I have never had one either. Perhaps it doesn’t affect beer?
A bit of drift: I posted in the other thread, but no one replied, so I’ll reiterate: ignore my recommendation on the Ommegang Adoration at your own peril.
I’ve experienced only a handful of TCA-ruined beer.
The best reasoning behind the low occurrence of cork flaw in beer is that most cork-finished beers are shipped and stored “neck up.” The beer almost never touches the cork.
Brewers tend to avoid using chlorine as a cleaner or sanitizer, as it does really nasty things to stainless steel. This eliminates one major source of TCA contamination. Recall that even in wine, the incidence of corked bottles is dropping as wineries stop using bleach as a cork sanitizer and cork manufacturers improve their product. At this point, TCA contamination is as likely to come from chlorine-based cleaners as from bad corks, and brewers don’t use those kinds of cleaners.
Ooops. Probably should have called on you first. So are you saying the corks brewers get are cleaned/treated differently? Like the corks Fantome use are like a wine cork (under a bottle cap).
I’ve always heard the mantra store your beers standing up. BTW, I had a recent Saison (ive only had a few) that was sour sour sour. Like acidic Lemon rather than funky sourdough.
I can understand modern facilities avoiding TCA contamination but I wonder more about the past on this subject. Even with storing bottles upright I have to think that it happened AND that some brewers knew what it was or noticed that their beer was corrupted.
I doubt that there are more than a hand full of wineries still using chloride cleansers either. As far as upright storage, sure, they wouldn’t come in contact as much as a wine stored upside down, but there is going to be contact when the beer is being shipped (sloshing around and touching the cork), and even very limited contact could cause a problem.
I don’t think that the corks get treated differently by breweries, I just think that the general procedures for handling corks has improved in the last decade, and since beer tends to get consumed sooner than wine, there is less chance of a legacy problem. Keep in mind that commercial brewers think about chlorine the same way wine makers think about brett - as in don’t get it near my place!
Saison Dupont is much more sour than the Hennepin, but I don’t believe it should strike you as sour sour sour. Maybe something was amiss with your bottle.
I’ve certainly heard of corked beers, but I don’t recall ever having knowingly experienced one.