Refusing to buy beer that doesn't have a bottling date?

I don't buy beers sans bottle dates unless they are an age-able beer, or relatively local. There is no reason not to do this. It's only in the brewers' best interest to put dates on their beers - it ensures that the best possible product gets to the consumer.

 

that's a lot of good beer you wont be drinking.

 

I definitely abstain from IPAs and Pale Ales that don't have at least a partial hint as to the bottling or enjoy by date. I've seen far too many IPAs that do have a bottling date of over 8 months to trust the ones that don't.

 

I try really hard to try IPAs that are less than 2 months old. Other than IPAs, I don't mind a couple of months on my beers.

 

Thank fellow BA, papat444 who put it all together and maintains it.

 

In light of some of the bad luck I've had with beer stores lately, I am also reluctant to buy beer that has no bottling/canned on or best buy date.

 

I stopped buying beer without bottle dates, I've been burned too many times spending a lot of money for old oxidized stale beer!

 

I check where I can and ask when I can't, some brews are case dated and a good shop knows the case date. Deviant Dales is on shelves now, it was canned on 6/12, it's 9 months old now with no expiration date that stuff will sit until it's pulled. You wonder why some brews suck, sitting right next to it was Sucks dated on Feb 6th, but it was on the case not the bottle.

 

Isn't that true of all beers, whether it's stamped with a bottling/canning date (which is the preferred choice of most BA's based on responses to previous threads), a "Best before" or pull date (very few brewers use the term "Expiration"), or no date at all?

Most brewers who use a packaging date also have a suggested shelf life period that is noted on their website or, at least, should be known by their distributors. Whether said distributors do anything about it...well...

 

That's the crux of it, the dealer bought it, the distributor doesn't want it back, the brewer certainly doesn't want it back. If I was a shop owner unless it was really popular I'd buy small allocations and have more frequent deliveries. This IMO is why TW sucks with hoppy brews, they over buy and they sit somewhere forever or until they discount 50% to get rid of it. If they bottle date it would still sell, only beer geeks would think to check, and that's still a very small percentage of beer drinkers. But 9 months old DD is ridiculous, and it's getting older by the day, BTW every can of DD I've seen in the area is the same date..

 

Your doing the right thing

 

The only time I buy when there are no dates is when I know it just came out, like a seasonal release. This helps especially when visiting another state and going to a store I've never been to before.

 

Guess it depends on the beer. If its a seasonal then Ill probably get it unless its been sitting there since last season. I have no idea if it has but Im trusting thats not the case.

 

I don't think it is exclusively a marketing strategy. I was told by my local liquor store owner that his Stone distributor will look at the lot numbers of beer on the shelf and replace old beer with new beer, out of Stone's expense. And their beers did not even have freshness dates until recently. They take initiative to make sure their beer is fresh instead of leaving it to the customer to check the date.

With that said, I have had 6 day old Pliny and I could not taste a hop. I had a 3 month old Kern River winter release and it tasted like I was drinking it at the brewery. If the IPA is good enough, the quality will stand out even after a few months.

 

I applaud what you're doing and think it is a worth while endeavor. I can't say I have totally passed on beers without dates, but it is certainly limited. If everyone did what you did, then breweries would respond by bottle dating everything. Nothing wrong with that!

 

You sure about that? It may be the case is So. Calif (where Stone owns their own distributionship) but as I understand it, in most cases, and for most brewers, the distributors have to absorb the expense of the pulled beer.

 

I don't buy IPAs without dates anymore. It isn't an unreasonable thing to expect a brewery to put this info on the can/bottle. There are some that I REALLY want to buy but don't know if they've been there a day, aweek, a month, or a year....so it sits. I fully believe they would sell more with dates on them. I applaud the Enjoy by series, I think that was not only a genius marketing idea, but just a ghreat idea overall to benefit us the drinkers.