Every beer must spend some time in the fridge before it’s ready to be consumed, and this especially applies to homebrew beers that just finished the natural carbonation process inside a bottle, barrel, or keg.
So, how long should a beer be in the fridge before you can drink it?
Lagers, pilsners, and wheat beers will need to spend around 45 minutes in the fridge before you can drink them and most ales will need no more than 20-30 minutes to get to the ideal temperature. Refer to the charts below for more information on individual styles.
The recommended chilling times are for using a standard household refrigerator. You should place the beer bottles or cans in the refrigerator’s main compartment, where the temperature is typically between 33°F (0.5°C) and 40°F (4.4°C).
The chilling times are meant to bring the beer to an ideal serving temperature considering that the beer was previously adjusted at room temperature. Overchilling can suppress the flavors while serving beer too warm can dull the taste.
Not every beer is the same, so depending on the temperature, Co2 volume, and the beer style, it may take longer or less time in the fridge for beer to be served.
This is the general advice that applies to most beers, now let me explain why these waiting times in the fridge are important and what temperature should you aim for.
Ideal serving temperature for beer styles
To be more accurate you can refer to this chat to see what temperature should each beer style be served at. Ideally, you should have a thermometer and measure the temperature because not every fridge chills beers the same.
Breaking the myth that beer needs days in the fridge
If you are homebrewing beer you might have heard people recommending that beer should stay in the fridge for 48 hours or more before you can drink it. This is not true because as soon as you drop the temperature that suits the beer style it will be ready for drinking and this can always be achieved in less than 1 hour.
However, conditioning beer in a fridge for a couple of days will hasten the process of natural filtration as sediment in beer will drop sooner in cold than at warm temperatures outside the fridge.
So, beer can be conditioned outside the fridge but it will take a bit longer for sediment to drop down to the bottom of a bottle.
This is almost never the case with commercial beers as they are already filtered.
Why it’s important to chill the beer before drinking?
It’s important to chill the beer before drinking for two main reasons which are the Co2 absorption and the importance for all flavors to sit together at the right temperature.
Co2 absorption
It’s a practice to naturally carbonate beer at room temperature by adding the priming sugar to the bottles, keg, or barrels on the bottling day and letting the yeast feast for a week or two. The beer gets carbonated the fastest at room temperature because the yeast loves to operate at the warmer ends of the temperature spectrum as that’s when it’s the most active.
Once the beer has been carbonated it’s important to chill it in the fridge to trap the created Co2 in the beer and it can only be achieved by dropping the temperature over time.
Co2 expands in warm environments but it also contracts in cold environments, so when you put a beer bottle in the fridge all Co2 will contract and get mixed with the beer. The low temperature will also make the Co2 stay in the beer longer as it will prevent it from evaporating out of the beer when it’s served in the glass or when the bottle is opened.
This rule is universal for all beers, so you can expect any commercial beer just like craft or homebrew beers to lose Co2 way sooner at warm than cold. Some beer styles are more carbonated and are served at lower temperatures as it’s crucial to maintain high Co2 levels, while other beers can be served at warmer because Co2 isn’t that important, yet every beer has a temperature cap and it shouldn’t be served warmer than that.
This also affects the forming of a head and head retention, so it’s super important to let the beer have enough time for all these processes to take place.
Effect on flavors
Besides temperature importance for Co2 absorption, every beer should be served at an exact temperature that will bring the desired flavors and aromas from it or in other words create the balance.
If you serve stouts and porters at 41°F (5°C), people won’t notice the rich, strong, and roasted flavors associated with coffee or dark chocolate, but that would be a great temperature for lagers which thrive at cold temperatures as they are supposed to be refreshing and easy to go.
The perception of hops, malt, alcohol, and anything else found in a beer is dependent on a serving temperature, so it’s worth waiting a bit to achieve the ideal temperature before serving a particular style of beer.
At what temperature does beer freeze?
Beer freezes at or around 28.4°F (-2°C), but it’s difficult to say the exact temperature because it highly depends on the alcohol content. The higher ABV beers will freeze at a lower point than that, but you can expect most light-medium beers to freeze when you get them to 28.4°F.
Why is this important? Well, you don’t want to accidentally freeze your beer so either be careful or don’t use fridges for cooling beer. I once put a beer in the freezer overnight and in the morning I didn’t like what I found.
Beer is major water and when water freezes, all other ingredients will mess up once you reheat it, so due to changes in chemistry you can expect a drop in quality. I can’t explain it all, but I didn’t find a frozen beer nearly as good after warming it as it was good before messing it up.
How long for beer to explode in the freezer?
The beer will explode in a freezer if kept at 32°F (0°C) for around 60 minutes.
Freezing beer is not just about ruining its taste, the bottles may shatter inside the freezer. Water expands when it reaches the chilling point and it may cause too much pressure which can break the bottle into pieces. This happens slowly and isn’t as dangerous as bottle bombs you have from too many Co2 levels or heating the bottle to a dangerous level but can still be dangerous and unpleasant as at least the beer will be gone.
Final take
When I created this guide, the point was to give you some quick information on how long should be beer kept in the fridge before it’s good to drink.
This works for any beer that’s been properly carbonated, so if you are buying a beer from a store or someone gave you their homebrew beer this is all you need to know.
However, if you are homebrewing your own beer, then you might have heard that people recommend that beer should stay in a fridge for days prior to being ready for drinking, yet it’s not the case.
Beer can be conditioned in a fridge for days or weeks to come, but it’s also possible to condition beer at room temperature, quickly chill it, and enjoy it!