What does it mean when a beer is said to be "cold filtered"?

mibmob

"Cold-filtering is a way of clarifying beer with a shortened lagering time. Beer (lager particularly) becomes clearer with extended storage which allows proteins and other particles to coagulate and settle out of suspension. The beer can then be drawn off and bottled. One way to reduce the time required is to chill the beer causing these molecules to "clump" and be easily filtered out. The up-side is that the time from brewing to finished product is shortened, thereby boosting productivity. The down-side is that cold-filtering also removes many components which contribute flavor and body to beer." http://www.faqs.org/faqs/beer-faq/part1/section-11.html Dec 18 04, 10:42 AM