Paste: "Beer is the New Milk: Drink It Fast"

Fresher = better.

 

Milk is for babies.

 

That's great that Firestone Walker does those comparative tastings. I wish I could forward the article to my local beer guy. Based on the huge racks and floor displays of IPAs I'm not sure that he understands.

 

Well, if you really wanted IPAs at their freshest, shouldn't you be eating hops off the bines? And malt out of the field, with a sip of water and a sprinkle of yeast? (joke)

 

I'd also like to send this to my local beer guy who sold me the first bottle. The first time I had Double Jack was from a bottle in Mass. Prob pretty old. Thought it was gross. The next time was on tap in Texas. Much different experience.

 

All jokes aside, now I'm thinking about only drinking IPAs from my store that go from the truck to the cold box. But to keep track of which cases are which? Tough. And that doesn't mean the brews weren't warm in the distro-center.

 

They picked the perfect beer to try this with. My first couple of bottles of Union Jack underwhelmed me, Pretty sure they were fairly old. Sadly it is still a rare occurrence for me to find fresh bottles over in Missouri...

Now I wish the powers that be in my state would care & we could actually allow refrigeration of full strength beer. My God, it's 2014 & not sure when this will actually happen. Our legislature is more interested in passing nonsense that usually gets struck down by higher courts, but not until after taxpayer money goes to defend such stupidity. end rant..

 

The title made me read the article, which simply reinforced what I believe is common knowledge. But the problem is and continues to be there is no way to know how the beer was handled from the brewery to the store. Of course, the presumption is that all beer is not refrigerated when warehoused and in the summer - heated when delivered.

 

I work at a package store, and I can confirm that the majority of beer we get is already warm.

Of course, this may be different in other states, but for the region I work in, none of the distributors' trucks have refrigeration in them.

 

Its ironic that firestone hosted this event on freshness and beer!! I am guessing we must be guinea pigs here in central Cali as I find 3 month old Double Jack and 4 month old Wookey Jack at my local bottle shops all the time!! I love fresh Double Jack and Fresh Wookey Jack so I hate that our local stores carry so much old inventory.

 

Based on my experience working at a wholesaler, I'd say you're odds of predicting such a thing are a toss-up. I'll take one of our biggest accounts for example. We deliver beer, truck it from the cool warehouse to the shop, and cart in as much as we can fit into the cooler. Overflow goes into a warm back room. I can't imagine it stays there for that long though. Not enough to make a horrifying difference - provided it's a popular beer that gets bought often enough. I am one of the few craft geeks in my area and am usually pretty sure that when I buy a beer, it's been on the shelf for a good long time.

 

I know how many BA's love their IPA's. Being primarily a stout drinker makes me feel good that I can take my time with my beers and not rush through drinking them...I love the aging process

 

Agreed but with a caveat. The only IPAs I will purchase warm must have a bottled date no more than one month before date of purchase or an enjoy by date at least 3 months out. But even for the cooler stored IPAs, unless it's the store policy to refrigerate all IPAs [and none but the biggest stores can, seeing that all stores HAVE to have macros in the cooler], you don't know how long they sat in the store before going into the cooler so it's no slam dunk buying from the cooler either.

 

Thanks to the stuff I've learned here on BA, I now look for IPAs and hoppy beers out of the fridge vs. on the floor. Sometimes, I know a new release is just in and I'll buy it off the floor if I don't see it in the fridge section. But that is my new procedure anyway. Got to know your store and release schedules pretty well.

 

Fresh IPAs are hard to come by in Oklahoma. Our liquor stores have to buy from distributors who rarely give a damn about fresh beer, and often sell expired beer. Meanwhile, our liquor stores can't have refrigeration. Our IPAs fall off pretty fast.

 

Yeah I got bit this last weekend. Got 2 month old Jai Alai from the cooler, nothing but malt. I ended up drinking them after some spicy meals, made it taste better lol.