Home brewing is a great hobby and allows you to share beer that you made with friends and family. It also allows you to specifically design a beer that fits your taste preferences. However, depending on the size of the batch that you brew, the bottles can take up a huge amount of space. If you are producing large amounts of beer each month or simply want to regain some space within your home, renting a storage unit to keep your extra bottles in could be a good idea.

However, before you move your bottles into a unit, you should know how to properly store beer to ensure that the flavor does not become ruined over a long period of storage.

Sunlight

First of all, if you do decide to put your beers into a storage unit, you need to make sure that you keep the bottles away from sunlight. This is because of a few reasons: firstly, sunlight will heat up the bottles, which can cause damage as detailed in the next point. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, UV radiation can cause the compounds within your beer to actually break down into sulfur compounds, which can ruin the taste and smell of your beer. As such, either store your beers in a storage unit without windows, or keep them out of the way of any sunlight that does manage to enter the unit.

Temperature and Humidity

Temperature fluctuations can have the same effect on beer as UV radiation, ruining the taste of your beer and making it give off a foul odor when you finally crack open a bottle. In addition, if you are using corks to seal your bottle, extremely dry environments can cause the corks to shrink and air to enter the bottles, whereas humid environments can contribute to mold growth in the corks. For this reason, it's best to either keep your beer in a specialized wine or beer cooler within your storage unit or invest in climate control capabilities for your storage unit, which can moderate the temperature and humidity year round.

Proper Beer Positioning

Finally, you need to make sure that your beer is properly stored in order to maintain the seal of the bottle. If you are using corks, you'll want to store your beers vertically so that the cork stays wet. Dry corks, as previously stated, will shrivel up and allow air to enter the bottle. However, if you are using bottle caps, you should keep beer standing upright, as it's easier to store that way.

For more information, contact a professional in your area like those found at Capitol City Storage.