Serving Bottled or Canned Beer
Nowadays it is common and convenient to just buy your beer from the supermarket or convenient stores. And beers are either sold in beverage cans or bottles, some breweries also bottled their beer in plastic (PET). Most people will drink the beer directly from the bottle or the can, however, there are those that prefers to pour it into a glass before drinking. Nevertheless, depending on the type of beer being served, you may choose to serve it in certain ways before drinking. Beers that come in bottles are either served by emptying the content into the glass or by pouring it slowing so that any yeast sediment is left at the bottom of the bottle. Generally beers stored in bottles are normally bottle conditioned beers. Bottle conditioned beers are beer that do not have all the yeast filtered or that have fresh yeast being reseeded after the filtering process. This is to allow for additional fermentation to take place in the bottle to add more carbonation. This process is known as priming and does not necessarily add more alcohol to the beverage. Some drinkers prefer to pour out the yeast into the glass when they drink, which is common with wheat beer, for example Hefeweizen is typically served with 90% of the content poured out and the remainder is then swirled to suspend the sediment before being poured into the glass. (Hefeweizen beer is a wheat beer in its traditional, unfiltered form. This kind of beer has low hop bitterness and high in carbonation which is important in balancing the beer’s relatively malty sweetness.) Beers served in cans were first considered as a technological breakthrough for maintaining the quality of the beer. It protects the beer from light and the seal is less prone to leaking over time than bottles. However, it is now commonly associated with less expensive, mass-produced beers, even though the quality of storage in cans is much like bottles.