17/10/2021

Beer shelf life

By introducing a new beer to the offer, the manufacturer declares the term of maintaining the microbiological, colloidal and sensory stability of the beer, ie the date “best before”.
During storage, beer cannot substantially change its properties, such as e.g. pH, turbidity, bitterness or sensory profile.

Depending on the style, raw materials used, the course of technological processes and many other factors, beers age at different rates. To be sure that the declared shelf life is correct, it is worth examining the shelf life of the beer.

Our experienced team will test the storage stability of your beer by evaluating the beer changes over a specified period of time. Ultimately, you will get information on what date you can put on the product label.

Principle of the method:
We test the storage stability of beer by storing the beer under certain conditions and analyzing several key quality parameters at specified intervals. Most often, we perform a complete set of analyzes at the beginning of storage (fresh beer) and after 30, 60 and 90 days.

What are we analyzing?
The basic package of beer durability testing consists in performing organoleptic assessment of beer at the beginning and after specified storage periods. Thanks to this, we define the sensory profile of fresh beer and check what changes occur in individual sensory attributes.

Additionally, in order to better understand the changes, we suggest performing selected additional test packages. Thanks to them, in the event of a rapid deterioration of the sensory quality of beer during storage, it is easier to identify areas that require improvement in order to improve the storage stability of beer.

Below are the additional analysis packages:

Package A:
Cloudy
Color
pH

Package B:
Alcohol
Bitterness
Real extract
Basic wort extract

Package C:
The number of yeasts and bacteria

The required number of packages to perform the test:
Basic package: 4 unit packages for each month of storage
Package A: additionally 1 package for each month of storage
Package B: additionally 2 packages for each month of storage
Package C: additionally 3 packages for each month of storage

For example, if you want to test whether you can declare a beer shelf life of 60 days on beer and also determine turbidity, color and pH (package A) during the test, you should provide:
8 packages for organoleptic evaluation and 2 packages for analysis of package A (10 packages in total).

Service cost:
The cost of the service depends on several factors:
– the amount of beers submitted simultaneously for durability testing
– duration of the study (1, 2, 3 months or more)
– on the scope of additional analyzes.

Please fill out a short form in order to obtain a quotation.

Czas przechowywania można zmienić w trakcie trwania badania. Np. jeśli po 60 dniach okaże się, że piwo utraciło swoje pierwotne cechy sensoryczne i nie nadaje się do dalszego przechowywania, nie będziemy realizować dalszego przechowywania i analiz po 90 dniach.