1001 questions: Why is beer rarely packaged in plastic bottles?

Plastic is a cheap material that is easy to form and most importantly easy to reuse. But why don’t people use plastic bottles to hold beer?

People do not use plastic bottles to pack beer for the following reasons: Plastic is a more porous material than glass, so it makes beer easier to “pale” when stored in plastic bottles instead of glass bottles because of the gas in the drink. will be more susceptible to evaporation. Glass has almost no effect on taste because of its chemical inertness. In contrast, plastic contains a lot of chemicals that can dissolve into beer and affect the taste, even the quality of the drink. Like glass, aluminum is a completely waterproof material, making it ideal for beer storage as well. But unlike plastic, the inside of aluminum cans is coated with a special polymer that prevents aluminum from leaking into the drink, so they are much safer. In addition, unlike the two materials above, aluminum completely blocks light, helping drinks in aluminum cans be better preserved than other types of bottles. Another problem with plastic bottles is that they cannot withstand the sterilization process that most beers go through. After being brewed and bottled, beer will usually have to be put through a machine that sprays boiling water to kill any bacteria that are still alive after the fermentation process. This process is both to ensure food safety and to increase the shelf life of beer. And while glass bottles or aluminum cans can easily endure the process, plastic cannot. That means either we have to skip the sterilization process, or we have to choose a more durable plastic, which means higher costs. For the above reasons, it can be seen that glass bottles and aluminum cans will still dominate the beer industry worldwide. Transparent beer bottles left in the sun often cause beer taste changes such as musty odors and odors, because UV rays from sunlight easily pass through the beer bottle shell to react with the sulfur molecules present in the beer. , creating a strange taste and difficult to drink like broken beer for a long time. Therefore, to overcome that situation, manufacturers have created beer bottles in brown and green colors, because these two colors prevent the best absorption of UV rays.