Such a natural low-alcohol drink like beer requires special attention during transportation and storage. It's all about its "live" composition and stormy disposition, because malt, which has entered into a chemical reaction with oxygen, literally breaks out even with the slightest shake.
Beer is a specific and capricious drink in all respects. If we talk about the shelf life of draft beer, then we can safely say that such a drink cannot be stored for a long time. The approximate shelf life of draft beer is a maximum of three days, but no more.
High-quality draft beer is brewed using special technologies to preserve the delicate taste of hops.
"Live" beer never goes through the process of pasteurization, immediately after brewing such beer goes straight to the keg.
Kega
Better containers for storing beer than a keg, perhaps, you will not find. A kega is a metal container (most often in the form of a barrel), which is used to store alcoholic beverages, as well as carbonated and non-alcoholic substances. Kegs are available in various sizes: from 20 to 50 liters.
Perhaps the main advantage of such a container is that the beer in this container retains all its taste qualities, in addition, complete safety during transportation is ensured. Kega will protect the capricious drink from light and oxygen, only it can keep the beer fresh for more than 2 weeks.
How to choose and store beer
When buying a draft beer on a retail basis, be sure to ask the sellers what is the period of its bottling. This is important to know, because draft beer is transported in special kegs, and if this keg is not bottled within two or three days, then the beer will deteriorate and will have an unpleasant smell, and the taste will lose its inherent sparkling.
Buy draft beer in a transparent container, while paying attention to the presence of typical precipitation in the drink. If flakes settle at the bottom of the container, most likely the drink is already spoiled.
If you bought draft beer in a plastic bottle, then you should put the drink in the refrigerator: plastic tends to heat up quickly in the sun, and therefore the drink itself will heat up and lose some of its flavor properties. When heated, the shelf life of the beer is also reduced.
It is better to store beer at a temperature not lower than 0 ° C, but also not higher than 12 ° C in a room where sunlight does not penetrate.
Draft beer is very popular along with bottled beer. But beer in glass bottles is stored much longer and, in addition, has many special additives in its composition to increase the shelf life. How many chemical elements are added to the drink is determined by the brand of beer: the less - the more expensive. That is why draft beer is considered the best, since it is "live", containing all the useful components and compounds, and therefore its shelf life is limited to just a few days.
