Is Shipping Beers in the Summer Safe?

Every homebrewer who ships beer has worried about it: what actually happens to those bottles baking in a delivery truck in July? This experiment answers it with data. Four beers — a stout, a dark lager, an Irish red, and a Mexican lager — get shipped to Billy at GamnDood Brewing in 92°F weather, with a temperature and humidity sensor sealed in the box logging conditions once a minute.

Then comes the science: triangle tests comparing the "cooked" shipped beers against control beers, to see if anyone can reliably taste the difference. The results are reassuring — the tasters mostly couldn't tell, going three-for-six at picking the odd beer out. Conclusion: you can worry a little less about summer shipping. And if you do ship a beer to Billy, make sure it's not an Irish Red.