I recently picked up a keg of John’s White Ale and while we were loading it into my car, the fellow helping me mentioned something I hadn’t thought about before.

He asked me if I had tried the kegged and bottled John’s White side-by-side before.  He said they were completely different beers because the beer in the keg had no oxygen permeation and was much more orange-y citrusy and the bottled version.  On the other hand, the bottled version was more spicy because the bottle cap allows oxygen into the bottle,and the oxygen works with the yeast to produce a completely different beer.

I had seen this before in terms of carbonation, etc. but not to this extent.  I tried it, and sure enough, he was right, and I was amazed.

Do you have any experience where two different packaging techniques create two different beers?