Old IPAs - What to do about this problem?

Ive seen bombers of HopStoopid, Mongo IPA, Wipeout IPA. And I'd love to try all three but theres no date on those Port Brewing bottles and theyre starting to collect dust. Just cant do it. I see old ipas, like 5-6 months or older, and get sad i cant try them and walk away. It sucks but at $9 a bomber and it may be super old i cant do it id rater use that money on a guaranteed good beer not a risk

 

I didn't read the full 8 pages but from what ive read is.

1. You want the freshest IPA, go to the source when possible or drink something more local.
2. Buy Cold Store Cold.
   
3. Cans do a better job at keeping an IPA fresher longer than bottles. Air and Light are your enemy.
   
4. Brew it yourself or with a friend.
5. Learn your "still enjoyable threshold" beers change and evolve sometimes for the better sometimes not so learn where you stand with your frequent purchases just because they taste similar does not mean they are made the same and will change the same.

 

The sad thing is the oldish beers don't get bought, then they get older, and don't get bought even more. Soon they are all thats left. Its a vicious circle.

That's why breweries make bottling dates so hard to decipher, they want people confused so they buy up the old stock.

 

buy stouts

 

Put your tin foil hat away. Please. There are so many more important things it can be used for. Like politics and home grown terrorism,
You want to do something that is well and truly productive for the beer that you love, and want so popping fresh?
Let the breweries know that their distributors are gnikcuf them with bad presentations of product on the market. You might be surprised at what they tell you. Because it is mostly, and nearly entirely out of their hands and they might just agree with you that distributing beer is a huge gamble, and an enormous pain in the butt. And you will have FACTS.
Get the name of who distributes their beer and tell them as well that they and their staff are gnikcuf their clients with beer that does not represent what the brewery wants on the market. You may well be surprised by what they tell you if you give them a civil chance to talk to you as well. Cos what they might tell you is this brewery has spread themselves really thin and what the issue is is that these markets they are in just don't move product like what this brewery offers. It's a huge chase, and somewhere in the middle is the consumer who is fickle as can be, and isn't in on the back story about how beer actually gets distributed in this country and what it has to go through to get to your glass.

Put the tin foil hat down and be proactive for the beer that you love. It's out of hand ignorance like yours that is also a HUGE problem, cos there are many of us who can and should hard fact you whenever nonsense like this comes up.
And what you are spouting is complete nonsense.
cheers.

 

I think that it is bad inventory management by store owners. Maybe you over-buy on a new product the first time, but after that you should be able to forecast fairly accurately how much of a product you should order. I also believe that most stores simply try to carry way too many brands, formats, etc. Just stock the stuff you can turn quick - less inventory, fresher product, better profitability.

 

Wow... not sure why you are so angry as ssam. What is was so ignorant about what ssam said?

 

Well, with approximately 8 million of them on the market, some of them gotta get old and stale, don't they?

 

The last sentence annoys the absolute crap out of me, cos it is so tin foil hatted that it deserves push back and hard facting about the realities of distributed beer.

 

What is your explanation for hard to read code dates? Born on or expiration dates are easy to read for all parties: distributor, retailer and consumer.

 

Wow, talk about an over reaction. I think it is pretty obvious to all that hard to decipher dating is intentional, so the guy had a point...just like clear dating is. Both are done for marketing purposes....and I don't think it is out of bounds to prefer clear dating and to point out why cryptic dating is intentionally used by some brewers.

 

If you got the time they got the beer I guess

 

Old IPAs are good in pan-fried IPA Garlic Noodles.

 

Retailers are at the mercy of the distributors.

It's always the distributors fault for allowing cans and bottles to lay around in their warehouse until the previous stock has been depleted.

This is why i applaud brewers like Alchemist and Carton who understand freshness, and they only sell their products cold.

That is not to say to that some retailers are just way too ignorant to be even selling some of the products on their shelves.

Case in point:

I was in a local supermarket chain that has a beer cafe in PA. I noticed that they had just gotten assorted six packs of cans from the recent mobile canning at Shawneecraft Brewery.

I thought, nice, i'll purchase a few.

Walked over the shelf, picked up a six pack of Bier Blanche and noticed condensation on the bottoms of the cans.

All the cans were delivered refrigerated to this store. What does the stockperson do? Instead of clearing space in the walk-in, they just shove them onto the shelf in the front window.

I picked every six pack off the shelf, cleared space in the refrigerator and loaded all the chilled cans in.

The biggest issue is actually distributor and retailer training. This is something that the larger breweries pay for through their sales reps.

Some mid sized companies like Stone, Victory, Troeg's, Founder's, Bell's etc.. all use their territory sales reps to train retailers, consumers and hopefully the distributor's who seem to be the biggest culprit in stale beers being sold to the consumer.

 

It's not always simple or easy, but if it's not dated don't buy it. That works for the 10% that are on BA and who know a bit, but it's the other 90% who don't and might buy, well.. They fuel the 200 IPAs sitting stale on the shelf.

 

Are you close to any Total Wine stores?

 

1 block away.

 

Don't buy IPAs that are old. Simple. Buy stouts instead, especially this time of year.

 

Geez, I thought they would have something under two months.

 

I would guess that I have to check 3 or more dates to find an IPA to buy that is less then 2 months and many approach 5 months old....especially the bombers. Many times I walk out with nothing even though I went to buy a couple six packs.