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Does beer taste better from a bottle or a can?

30 Comments

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glass bottle.definitely better taste.

Absolutely agree. Beer from the can will do in a pinch, but that from a glass bottle always has a purer taste.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

A chilled schooner of old from a tap at 4c is my preferred choice. But I give up drinking alcohol when I became a father and haven,t had a beer since. I was a heavy drinker often downing a slab a day on average. I could correctly tell you where you brought your beer from by temperature. If purchase in my local town. But when I did drink I preferred a can at 4c because of the carbonation it obtain in can is shaper on t he back of the throat/palet, enhancing the aromatics of the ale or lager.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

No question about it. Always from a bottle. Best is draught, second is bottle, can is last.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

From the tap. But bottle or can, the taste of both can be improved by pouring it into the appropriate glass.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Bottle, hands down. If there is no other choice I’ll drink it from the can, but that’s almost never fun and the entire aura of how a beer should be enjoyed is just thoroughly minimized. Unless I can sit down, have meal or hangout with my homies at a nice pub, I usually will not drink, if I want to guzzle something, then it should be a bottle of water.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

From a glass after being poured from a wooden keg using gravity.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Of course Bottle.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Beer from cans is gross.

Bottles only.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Listen to them. I can't tell the difference even between most the beers on offer here, let alone from a bottle or tin. And I don't suppose anyone else can either.

-7 ( +5 / -12 )

Listen to them. I can't tell the difference even between most the beers on offer here, let alone from a bottle or tin. And I don't suppose anyone else can either

In defence of mass-produced Japanese beer, I remember speaking to a man who worked for Asahi Breweries who told me the blandness of Japanese beer is by design. They are designed to compliment food and come off tasting very similar.

As for can v bottle, aren’t the cans lined with film that removes the metallic taste that canned beer supposedly had in the past?

Have a beer snob mate who tells me there is no difference nowadays.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

compliment 

complement

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Dumb question. Bottle. Hands down glass up.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Hard to tell the difference after the first nine….

11 ( +11 / -0 )

Definitely bottle or barrel. A can is to thin to retain the fizz.

the best beer companies do not sell in cans.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

From a glass after being poured from a wooden keg using gravity.

Very nice, but many oldies in Scotland would say that instead of gravity, beer served with air pressure produced by a water pump is better. Not sure if such systems are still around.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@Moonraker: Really? I think you'll find a lot of us can, especially between the major brands here. If you're not a beer drinker, fine - don't mock. Go back to your 'herb' juice.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Draught beer straight from the cask or keg is the best but the next best thing would be bottled beer. Canned beer should be your last resort.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Bottle 100%

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I think you'll find a lot of us can, especially between the major brands here.

Good for you. I am a beer drinker and I can't. You must have a very refined sense of taste.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Nah. Asahi too gassy. Kirin slightly bitter. Sapporo spot on. Suntory undrinkable. No refined taste here.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Clear answer, beer tastes much better from glass bottles, and of course the story continues. Then within all glass bottled beers it has to be from a brown glass bottle, if avoidable, never chose a green or transparent glass bottle. That's the rule, although a few exceptions may occur. For example you have of course to prefer a famous brand Czech or German beer even if it comes in a green bottle, when the alternative would be any no name or otherwise unknown 'beerish' fluid in a brown bottle at a cheap discounter.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

All drinks, including beer, taste better from a glass. Even Gatorade, which ages ago was sold in glass bottles, tasted better.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"Woman like long neck bottles

And a big head on her beer"

Captain Beefheart

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I pour my beer into a glass, a glass glass, no plastic one or anything. I prefer to pour from bottled beer or from a tap, but a glass improves even canned beer. Most people I know drink directly from the bottle or the can, and I do when I have to (in social situations, etc.) and I don't see anything wrong with that. I just prefer a glass.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I don't drink mainstream Japanese beer, but I like it that it comes in bottles that are reused. This is how drinks should be sold. I drink mostly craft beers and if they come in bottles, they will be odd shapes and just smashed up at gomi time without being washed and reused. In that situation, cans are better.

If I lived in the UK, I would drink pressurized beer in the widget cans. I think its an underappreciated technology. In Japan, Guinness is the only one commonly available.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

From a schooner (a 370 ml glass, not sail boat) in the beer garden outside the public and saloon bars in many pubs in New South Wales and Queensland in Australia, especially if Asahi is on tap.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Brown bottles are the best for cutting UV which really messes up beer.

Green bottles do so only moderately and clear glass not at all.

Cans cut UV 100%, guaranteeing spoilage due to light to be negligible.

Modern cans are inner coated with a polymer film to prevent metal contamination.

The metallic taste of beer from a can mostly comes from our lips and mouths and tongues contacting the outer rim/top area.

If possible ie in your home, can beer should be poured into a clean cold beer glass.

Which is better - mostly subjective as we feel closer to what we have grown up with and know well.

And re the eco-footprint. It's not perhaps as one would imagine.

Aluminum cans are very light and have an extremely high recycle rate and is not such a difficult process.

Bottles much to many peoples surprise require a lot of energy to recycle - very heavy, high temps etc - and the storage transportation and distribution are also energy demanding in comparison to cans.

Given all of that though, my first choice will be a brown neck.

Why? Well that's what real beer comes in - lol (Huge Bias)

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I agree on glass bottles or pouring the cold canned beer into a glass. The abomination is beer sold in pet bottles which I have seen in the US. The flavor just doesn't sit right.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

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