Criteria for comparing and evaluating plastic beer bottles incorporating different types of physical barrier materials and/or oxygen scavenging preparations to prolong the shelf life of their contents are reviewed. Topics discussed include the main gas transfer mechanisms involved in the uptake of oxygen and the loss of carbon dioxide by plastic bottled beer, the principal types of plastic beer bottles in use at the time of writing and their characteristics relevant to beer flavour stability, the mathematical modelling of gas transfer processes and the prediction of bottle performance on the basis of such models, the analytical determination of oxygen uptake and carbonation loss and the sensory evaluation of flavour deterioration in plastic bottled beer during stability trials.
