Bottles and Cans

A bottle or a can is beer that was finished at the brewery rather than in the cellar. It is sealed there, it travels well, and it keeps, which is what lets this cabinet hold beers from Belgium, Estonia and Norway alongside British ones.

Most of them are filtered and stable, so what you open is what the brewer intended on the day it left. Some are bottle-conditioned, with live yeast still working in the bottle: those carry a little sediment, they go on developing for months or years, and they are worth pouring gently and leaving the last inch behind.

Bottled beer tends to run stronger than what is on the bar, which is why so much of it comes in 330ml rather than a pint. A Belgian quadrupel at 10 per cent in a third of a litre is a different proposition from a session bitter, and it is meant to be.

Serving temperature is not one number. Lagers, wheat beers and hoppy cans want to be cold. Strong dark ales and Trappist beers open up a few degrees above fridge temperature, so they are better left to stand for a few minutes than drunk straight out of the cold.

The Belgian beers carry a BELGIAN BEER sign on the board, so you can see at a glance which cabinet to look in.