Stone Enjoy By actual "enjoy by" date?

I have sold through a ton of Enjoy By, and your question is one that is asked all the time. All the sources I have indicate that the breakdown in the beer quality/taste is a gradual process. After a few weeks it really would get to be noticeable. Caveat emptor.
That being said, retailers would take am big credibility hit if they still had this on their shelf after 4-20.

 

Well, this prob won't be much help, but I have gone two weeks past the enjoy by date and it was still pretty good. The 2-14 bottling I had in early March (the first time ever trying enjoy by). I then had the 4-20 version when I first saw it on shelves in mid March I think. It was much better IMO when I got it that fresh, but I didn't think those older bottles were that far off.

 

I just had the enjoy by 420 last night and it was still great, but it is definitely not what it was a month ago.

 

They start to fall off immediately. As to when they become undrinkable, I have no idea.

 

A good rule of thumb is that most beers have a noticeable dip in quality after about six to eight months. Higher ABV beers can be cellared for a long time (years). I bought a year and a half old 7% Baltic porter imported from Russia just for the novelty of it and I was relatively pleased with what came out of the bottle. Conversely, my mom gave me a year old bottle of Erdinger Hefeweizen for my birthday and it was the worst thing I've ever had- immediate drainpour.

Hop heads swear that IPAs don't taste good two weeks after bottling, but honestly, unless you're trying to drink two year old Enjoy By, I think you're going to be 100% pleased with whatever you purchase, even if your beer is two weeks past the date on the bottle.

I guarantee you Stone did not brew and bottle that beer seven months before shipping it, so the date on the bottle is more of a marketing tool than an actual expiration date.

 

drank last November's exactly one month after the date and it tasted fantastic.

 

http://www.stonebrew.com/freshbeer/

Enjoy by has a 35 day window. They seriously do not want it on the shelves beyond that. The idea is that the beer was bottle no earlier than 35 days before the "enjoy by" date.

 

Not quite sure what you are getting at with saying stone did not brew that bottle 7 months before shipping it. You can follow the brewing process for the enjoy by and they bottle the beer the day before or the same day as shipping it out and work with the distributors to expedite shipping so its gets to shelves as fast as possible. The date on the bottle is when Stone thinks the beer will taste best by. Anything after the date while still may taste good to a point, isn't going to match the taste that stone intended which is why I think most brewers put best by dates on their beers. After that time period, the beer won't taste the same as the brewer intended when it was bottled.

 

Stone did a great job of using beer snobery against the beer snobs. Its a complete marketing gimmick.
Greg said-hey all these beer geeks say that an IPA should be consumed as fresh as possible because after day 2 in the can/bottle it starts to taste like shit. Lets market a beer that right on the label tells everyone when to drink it by.

He furtherd the ploy buy making people request the beer by social media. Genius.
Bottom line, most beers have to have a 90 shelf life for any distributor to even consider selling it. Most dist. have deals with the larger retailers to take back old beer. I dont think any Dist is going to give credit for an Enjoy by 4/20 on 4/22. Not gonna happen!!

Also Foothills is doing the same thing-But they arent trying to fool anyone into drinking there beer by a certain date.
They have been releasing an IPA every month with not warning to drink it by!!!

 

I would think it would start to really fall off a couple of months after the enjoy-by date. Sure it wouldn't be as great as it would fresh, which is the point in drinking this beer fresh, but I feel that a lot of the freshness deal is douche-bagery in the part of beer snobs. I mean take Pliny the Elder for instance, people say that Pliny is best when consumed within two weeks of Bottling, WTF??? People treat some of these IPA's like they are milk. I know Enjoy by shouldn't sit in refrigerators past its enjoy by date but I would definitely purchase 4/20/14 through May if it was still available. As far as a discount, I doubt those are being given for beer that is past its enjoy by date.

 

I had a bottle of the Enjoy By 12-13-13 about a month ago, and it was tasty. Big tropical fruit notes, a good amount of non-cloying sweetness, and the bitterness did not dip as much as you would expect it too. The biggest loss I found was the piney notes that I get when it is fresh.

 

I've had one that was a month past the date and it tasted just the same as the one I drank 8 weeks earlier.

 

I'm aging them all to have a super vertical in 15 or so years.

 

I had the 4-20-14 when first released and thought it was great. Then I had a pour at the bar on 4/20 and I thought it was even better than fresh... not sure what this says about the actual "enjoy by" date.
But hell, I'd say its worth a try if its cheap and expectations are realistic.

 

Blasphemy!

 

Happens all the time...


At 30 days out Enjoy By is noticeably less aromatic and tastes sweeter.

 

Yeah of course, I totally agree with you.

What I was trying to say was that the date on the bottles is not an expiration date, i.e. the day after this date the beer begins quickly degrading to an undrinkable state. I realize what I wrote was pretty poorly worded.

Honestly, Enjoy By will probably be a phenomenal beer four or five months after the "enjoy by date" on the bottle. Will it be as good as it is before that date, no, probably not, but I think the OP shouldn't be too concerned about the quality dipping off all that much if the bottles are only a few weeks old.

The same couldn't be said if the date on the bottle was an expiration date, where the beer has been stored for its longest recommended time according to the style, which I suggest is about 7 or 8 months.

 

gotcha. yeah, that'd be interesting to have an expiration date. It's high alcohol though so it wouldn't really ever expire. Although on a few imperial stouts like Storm King, they have a best by date of 3 years which I'm curious if they actually noticed any improvement in flavor until that day and then a huge drop off after.

 

Don't quote me on this, but I heard/read somewhere that according to Greg @ Stone, it's actually good for up to 12 days past the Enjoy By date.

Wait.... holy shit OP..... that's tomorrow! Go go go go go!