Is there anything I can do short of leaving a glass out on the counter to mitigate overcarbonation?

Question

I recently picked up a bunch of bottles of what seemed like interesting brews from Hitachino, because I was interested in exploring some Japanese beers. Unfortunately, the first two bottles I've opened now seem to have both been severely overcarbonated.

We're talking foam overflowing out of the bottle once I open it. These bottles have not been exposed to significant agitation recently. They've been sitting on a shelf, upright as is proper, for days. Worse still, they don't just explode and make a mess, but they also simply taste severely overcarbonated. It's like drinking shaken seltzer water mixed with my beer, and it's decidedly unpleasant. At this point, the only thing I've been able to do is pour a glass, leave it out for an hour or three, and then drink it.

Which is... impractical at best, and is only going to become less so as the weather warms up. Is there anything else I can do to mitigate this?

Answer 1

You can decant the beer between two large glasses or pitchers - the agitation will cause the CO₂ to come out of solution quickly and also not raise the temperature too much.

Sample after 4-5 decants to see how much the carbonation has dropped, and repeat as necessary. You will end up with quite a bit of foam, hence the need for larger glasses or a pitcher.

Answer 2

How long do you leave them in the fridge before you open them? Making sure they've had a good several hours to chill may mitigate the explosion. You could also try a homebrewer's trick, which is to chill them really cold, pop the caps all off then put new caps on. You would need a bottle capper to do this. They're fairly cheap but you probably wouldn't have them unless you were or knew a homebrewer.

That said, your best course of action may actually be to contact Hitachino. Gushing bottles are often a sign of a wild yeast infection, so it's possible you may have just gotten some bad beer that got mishandled in shipping or something messed up on the bottling line and they missed it. They may replace the pack or at least give you some other cool stuff to make up for the mistake.