We have all had skunky beer in the past, right? What we wanted to do is really understand the effects of direct sunlight on a beer. Check out another one of Mike’s off-flavor experiments. This time, it’s light struck beer!

Light Struck Beer Experiment Details

So Mike took a liter and a half of his Pale Ale and transfer it to a plastic bottle topped with his carbonator cap. He left it in the sun for just 2 hours. When we opened it up, he didn’t think it was enough time to skunk the beer. Well, we were wrong.

Immediately after he poured the light struck beer into the glass, you could smell the skunky aroma. It followed through in the taste. There is no mistaking that flavor – it tasted as strong as it smelled.

Since the skunk aroma and flavor replaced the hops qualities in the original beer, the malty sweetness bled through underneath. It wasn’t detectable in the unaffected beer, but in the experiment better, it showed up pretty well.

Hope you like learning about these off-flavors as much we do. Mike was successful in ruining beer. I hope we will be better at detecting it in the future and know when to dump a beer.

Stay safe and brew on!