Annoyed with "Freshness" How Fresh is Fresh?

This certainly is not fresh enough message me for my address and I know a guy who can dispose of them for you.
Joke aside I try to purchase all IPAs under a month and when theres nothing new out I go between my staples purchasing whatever is the freshest.

 

Wow...that's pretty insane. 2-3 weeks for me is pretty GD fresh. There's literally Deviant Dales IPA sitting on the shelf down the street from me that's from 11-7-12. Now that is a freshness issue, especially with an IPA. Up to a month old is basically super fresh in my mind. 2 months old is drinkable, and I'll still buy it if it's something I like, but will sometimes look around for fresher bottles of something else. 3 months and over (and I'm strictly talking hoppy beers here) is where I get pretty reluctant to even buy said hoppy beer.

Shit, I'll trade for some 3 week old PtE! Any east coast brews you're itching to try?

 

it does seem to be getting to a point where, unless you're snagging it directly from the bottling line, an IPA will be considered by beer geeks to be past its prime.

2-3 weeks is plenty fresh.

 

Sounds like you need better trading partners. I could probably find 1,000 people on this site who would love a chance for some PtE. I think the problem is that in some places you can get it a few days after it was bottled. When I was in San Francisco, I'd find them on the shelves sometimes with a date stamp no more than 3 days previous. It was routinely like that.

 

I think it's fresh enough! Makes me feel good though when I am getting with 1-2 days on them though.

 

Nah, unfortunately not, I'm from the Philly area...haven't even had any HF brews myself yet! I'm planning on taking a trip to VT to get a couple cases of Heady and some HF stuff, but that isn't happening until the summer.

 

The Sucks bottled on 1-2 is still drinking really good; I have been back to buy it three times and don't notice any discernible drop off. Hopslam was different and lost quite a bit of pop after 5-6 weeks so I really think its beer specific.

 

love Block 15's recent joke about this, at least imo; their recent bottling of Sticky Hands DIPA, which is amazing, has a best before date of "yesterday".
Love it and love their beers!

 

Really? That's goofy.

But back to trading partners; now you know who not to trade stuff to when you get other tasty gems in the future, which you most certainly will.

 

This. I would be willing to bet a very large majority of those complaining about the "freshness" of a 2-3 week old PtE wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a blind taste test between a bottle with a week or less and a bottle with 2-3 weeks on it.

EDIT: And even if they did it once, if they repeated 3-5 times they wouldn't be able to do it with consistency.

 

In defense of traders worried about freshness: If an ipa is 3 weeks old when you begin discussing a trade, it might take a day or two to finalize, the trader might be busy for a few days and can't ship right away, maybe then it sits in the shipping warehouse over the weekend, by the time it leaves the shipping facility a week has gone by. If you're shipping PtE to the East Coast, it could take over a week to get to some remote parts. Suddenly the beer is a week past a month old by the time you even get your hands on it. If you were planning to share it with friends, that might take some more time until your tasting group meets or you have off time. The beer is probably still delicious, but I've tasted many IPAs that were not the same within 6 weeks.

In the end, if there is a choice, why settle for 3 weeks to start if you can find someone with 1 week old?

 

I do have a problem with people who trade beers that are a year old, a year and a half old, etc.

Even if they are big beers, and are susceptible to aging, if you're trading something that old, I need to be told up front.

As for trading month old IPAs, anyone who has a problem with that needs to reexamine their lives

 

No offense, but lol

 

Dude?

 

I purchased a six pack of Maximus at bevmo with a 0013 code on it expecting it be bottled on the first month of this year. I opened it and took it a drink... definitely bottled on the first month of LAST year.

now that is a freshness issue. 13 month old IPA.

 

Also cannot seem to find a bottle of fresh MONGO IPA anywhere. they are all from April or May of 2012.