PET is the material used to make 2 liter plastic soda bottles. It has been used for 30 years to store, transport, and consume carbonated beverages.

Before Granite Roots decided to use PET in our 32  ounce growlers along with 16 ounce bottles, we did research and our own testing.

RESEARCH:

• PET does not contain any BPA.
• It is a recyclable #1, widely accepted by most municipal recycling centers
• It is lightweight so when you carry it, it is less stressful on you.
• It is less expensive to purchase than glass
• It is cheaper to transport then glass
• It does not break as easily as glass.
• Brown PET blocks the same amount of light as brown glass
• You can take it places where glass is not allowed due to glass breakage
• The beer containers we purchase are much more ridged then the 2 liter soda bottles and hold their shape.
• The thick PET also reduces loss of carbonation.
• A Life Cycle Analysis shows a 12 ounce PET bottle has less of an environmental impact than either aluminum or glass 12 ounce container.
• Today’s plastic screw on caps make better seals then metal screw on caps. There is no gas permeation through the cap material itself.
• Lab research shows no significant loss of carbonation after 3 months in standard beer quality PET growlers. Most research shows detectable loss of carbonation in the 3-5 month time frame. So, do not use PET to cellar condition beer. Beer in PET should be consumed within 3-4 months from the time of bottling. This works well for most growlers sold in tap rooms.

I talked with 3 craft breweries who were using PET for growlers. They all said they were glad they have used PET though all said they had to educate customers to why PET was equal or superior to glass except for long term storage.

TESTING:

Granite Roots worked with another local brewery to do testing of a light bodied craft beer in glass and PET 64 ounce growlers. We chose a light body beer because we thought it would show any subtle differences in flavor/appearance. Beer was poured from a tap into both growlers, screw capped and put in a refrigerator for 3 weeks.

Taste tasting after 3 weeks showed no difference in; carbonation level, flavor loss, or off flavor gain between glass and PET.

We have kept a PET bottle filled with a Red Berry Gulp around for up to two months and had good beer poured from that PET container. Sorry, we have not been able to control ourselves to hold the beer longer than 2 months, people keep drinkin’ it!

STORAGE CONDITIONS:

Always keep beer below 80F, preferably below 70F no matter what the container material is.

Keep all beer out of the sunlight since sunlight has the most UV. Artificial light (incandescent) does have some UV but not nearly as much as sunlight. Florescent lightbulbs have almost no UV component.

The PET does have more chance to allow CO2 to escape. Open and enjoy the beer within 1 week for maximum carbonation with minimal oxidation.

Mooselick uses whole fruit in two distinct ways while producing Mooselick beers: fruit enhancement and fruit forward.

Fruit Enhancement is the addition of fruit to a traditional beer style in order to add another flavor profile to the beer, in addition to enhancing the flavor of the underlying beer. Velvety Antlers uses peaches and apricots to add just a little bit of stone fruit flavor and aroma to a brown ale. Hoof Print Porter uses black currants to add fruit depth to the roasted grain dominance of a porter. Coffee, technically a fruit though not from our local farm, is added to WOW our stout. Even Dirty Old Moose has a small amount of raspberry. Fruit enhanced beers at Mooselick are processed as a traditional beer would be, about 2 weeks in the fermentor.

Fruit Forward beers are where the flavor and aroma is all about the fruit. The amount of fruit used per barrel is much higher than fruit enhanced beers. Red Berry Gulp uses red raspberries and red currants; Razleberry is raspberries and blueberries; Currant Trend is red & black currants; while Apple Rack is, well, bittersweet apples.

Picking the yeast strain, and time in the fermentation cycle can have a profound effect on the final flavor of a fruit forward beer. I use a specific yeast strain just for our fruit beers because I like the results with this strain. I give Fruit Forward beers 4 weeks in the fermentation tank to allow/force the yeast to go after the second level of sugar that is in fruit that is not in malted grain.

I strive for a dry fermentation which means that there is very little residual sugar, just like a dry wine has little sweetness. All fruits have an underlying tartness which is balanced by the sugar; some fruits lean towards being sweeter (blueberries, peaches) while others barely have any balancing sugar (red currants, gooseberries). When the sugar is fermented away, you are left with the tartness and flavors belonging to the base fruit. This is often quite a shock to our tastebuds as we are accustomed to expecting those flavors sweetened by the natural sugars. I feel this is why the first taste of a Mooselick fruit forward beer is often accompanied by a strange face which is modified during taste 2&3 as our brains start to process the underlying flavor as something that we do know.

Mooselick sources the whole fruit from Monadnock Berries in Troy, NH. We juice the whole fruit and add the juice/pulp stream to the beer. Sometimes we use the solids stream like a wine maker does; limiting the time the solids are exposed to our beer so only the easy-to-extract stuff is pulled from the skins/solids. We use red raspberry pulp, along with currant and blueberry skins. We do not use the skins of peaches, apricots, or gooseberries.

Juicing black currants for our beers

There is a relatively new phenomena in the USA beer scene called sours. Sours have been made in Europe for centuries (Belgian Lambic and German Berlinerweisse by using wild yeast/bacteria). More recently, brewers have added special yeast and bacteria to cause further controlled fermentation and the byproducts are more acids causing the sour sensation. Mooselick does not add any of these souring yeast or bacteria to our beers. All the tartness that you detect is from the removal of sugar from the fruit. The more complete the beer fermentation (drier), the closer to a natural sour sensation.