FAO Sadbrewer - exploding ale

Just opened a bottle of bottle conditioned craft ale (unpasteurised if this makes any difference). It hadn't been shaken and was the right temperature, and it didn't look particularly gassy in the bottle - and basically I've just been greeted by an uncontrollable explosion of foam! Within seconds as well as everything flowing out of the top of the bottle, half the contents then turned to bubbles as well. I managed to tip a bit into a glass and after five minutes it had stopped erupting, and after another couple it was more or less drinkable - well, what was left! Surprisingly, the beer itself isn't actually that gassy, though it is extremely yeasty with loads of sediment. Not entirely sure it's meant to be quite as yeasty, but it's a passable beer. I was just wondering what would cause such an explosion, and whether it's likely to be a bad bottle or it's just the type of beer?

 

Its a case of too much fermentable material being left in the beer prior to bottling. Basically the yeast in the fermenting vessel during the primary fermentation has to eat up the sugars in the beer, it produces a further growth of yeast,producing alcohol and Co2. If you ferment too far the beer will be flat, although extra (priming) sugars can be added to the bottle, if it hasn't fermented far enough and too many unfermented sugars go through, the yeast in the bottle will carry on fermenting and give you exactly the problem you have, an excess of yeast and Co2.
Even the largest brewers found bottle conditioning tricky to get consistently right, those who still do tend to filter the primary yeast out prior to bottling, and then re-seed the bottles with accurately measured tiny amounts of new yeast. Worthington White Shield is probably the only widely available real ale in a bottle left over from the old days. The best known was always bottled Guinness, they sadly packed up with bottle conditioning about 20 years ago....hope that helps MT

PS it couldn't be pasteurised, as that would kill any yeast in the bottle.
PPS one surprising thing is that bottle conditioned beers can far outlive the filtered/pasteurised version,
one I remember particularly fondly was Thomas Hardy Ale from Eldridge Pope brewery in Dorset, a very strong ale, I can't say what ABV as there was no legal requirement to put it on the bottle in those days, but I've drunk them at 25 years old (the beer not me) and they were awesome, I still have a few bottles left from
1978-86...I haven't had one in ages, but I'd be surprised if they're not perfect.

 

I've got a couple of batches of mine which are over carbonated

Usually have the carbonation off to a tee but one has too much yeast and the other a, fruity Belgian, has far too much fruit residue.

Its a shame because the latter is one of the nicest I've made.

I have to almost freeze the bottles and then carefully and slowly open. over the course of 30 mins or so, to try and get out the beer.

Usually get about 400 ml of beer from a pint bottle.

 

Re: I've got a couple of batches of mine which are over carbonated

I would say you are also suffering from a high degree of unfermented material, if you were serious enough you could buy saccharometers that
will give you a very accurate reading on what is left in, you could also calculate the ABV reasonably closely, to buy new you'd be looking at about £75 each, and you'd need two, but there are a few firms mainly around the Doncaster area who buy and sell brewing equipment that knock secondhand ones out in the £20-25 bracket.

 

Cheers for the detailed reply. What you have said would definitely tie in with the sediment / yeastyness in the beer. There has been an explosion in craft brewing in Russia recently, with varying levels of success. Another IPA which I buy quite often used to be both over and under carbonated depending on the batch when it was first launched, though they seem to have nailed it now as the last few bottles I've had were perfect. Dunno if any of them are making it over to the UK, but if you get the chance anything from Jaws, Knightberg or AF Brew should be sampled.

By the way, interesting what you said about the shelf life of bottle conditioned beers. Another one that I bought today recommends consuming within 2 months. After what you said I'm tempted to keep it for a few years just to see what happens! Though knowing how awesome this ale is and knowing myself, it will be gone by this time tomorrow!

 

I hadn't realised you were in Russia!! Russia used to have good brewing connections with Britain, British brewers built several breweries there in victorian times, and strong ales were a good export earner for some of our breweries, the last survivor was Courage Imperial Russian Stout,
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/courage-russian-stout.html it was still available from Courage in the 80's, it's apparently available again though brewed by Charles Wells.
The shelf life is largely dependent on ABV though, alcohol being the greatest preservative, according to this Hardys was about 12%
http://www.thomashardysale.org.uk/
but I would be surprised if any ale of 6-8%, assuming the brewery has good housekeeping and sterile bottling conditions wouldn't last far longer than that, we once had a cask of Courage Directors 4.8 %, we found hidden away behind some empties, that was seven months old and it was excellent.
One strange thing though, you would assume, the modern way, a beer with the yeast filtered out, and sterilised by pasteurisation would last longer than the natural product, but it doesn't seem to be the case, although they are starbright with no sediment, as they age they will sometimes throw a haze, or produce a crystalline sediment in them, I don't know the science behind these effects, as we only concentrate on draught beer.
I dropped lucky with the Hardy Ale...it was quite expensive, but I dropped on a cardboard box with a dozen bottles in for 50p at a car boot sale in the early 80's....I started trying one a year, and then extended it to 5 years...ish, then longer when I realised they'd nearly gone, I only have 2 left now a '78 and an '86, I think I'll have the next one if I become a grandad!!

 

Every Russian craft brewery worth its salt does a take on the Imperial Stout. Not really my thing to be honest, often like alcoholic treacle! Although I had a bottle of black IPA recently - which sounds utterly bizarre, but was actually amazing. Think Guinness Foreign Extra but extremely powerfully hopped. Anyway, it seems like the UK-Russia connections are being revived, as St Petersburg's AF Brew recently did a series of Burton ales, which were brewed in conjunction with the UK. I think they were a limited run as I haven't been able to find any unfortunately. I'm going on a mission next weekend to put that one right!

I checked Thomas Hardy out on the internet - it seems to be a bit of a cult thing, and older bottles sell for some crazy prices.

By the way, when you say "we", which brewery do you work for if you don't mind me asking? Just curious.

 

How do you actually manage to keep beers for that long?! If I get an interesting bottle I usually want to sample it there and then! This may mean that either I'm not very patient, or I'm a passive alcoholic!

Remember the Tim O'Rourke trip - http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/06/15/to-russia-with-beer/

 

I've got a couple of bottles of Stella left in the fridge that I bought from Tesco's on Friday.

 

I heard that Heimi Henderson's taking delivery of exploding tonic water! That's gonna be a whacky off-license when it opens.

 

I'd hang on to those, could be worth a fortune in 30 years!

 

I once hed sum Sam Smiths that med mi arse explode.