how does Stone Enjoy By affect marketing "fresh beer"?

No effect. It's good, though.

 

Wait until you regularly see 4 day old Ruination and IPA on shelves before we talk about an industry impact. A one time release in limited quantities, sent to select markets can get pushed through a lot quicker than your everyday product.

 

If it has any effect, which I doubt it will, it will be negative. It will further reinforce, at least in some minds, that DIPA/IPA's that are a couple weeks old aren't "fresh." The whole "freshness" thing has reached a level that is fairly ridiculous.

 

If it gets more bottle dates on more bottles I'm all for it.

 

I think it brings up alot of questions - if only one month is good for this IPA, why would I drink any of your other IPA's that are older than that? And why are some breweries dating their best by dates up to 5 months on IPA's? Opening up a can of worms here (and I think that's a good thing) that they themselves may not be able to put the lid back on.

I appreciate the concept and hope they keep pushing this agenda and finding ways to get fresh IPA's and pale ales into consumer hands, but I don't think its very realistic with today's distribution models and volumes of beer that is shipped/stored before it gets to retail.

 

Of course an unscrupulous brewer could always just print a bottled-on date a couple weeks later than the actual bottling date to make it appear fresher. As long as fall beers start hitting shelves in July I don't see why that would be a problem.

 

Might be a time for Sierra Nevada and New Belgium to think about building east-coast breweries...oh wait.

 

I thought IPA's were one of the beers to stay fresher longer than the rest. I thought the initial reason why IPA's had so many hops was to help them last longer in long voyages(olden times). Is this not true? I'm still thinking that IPAs might taste the same day 1-3 as day 60 or 90. Hmmm.. maybe my grad project. Does time in shelf affect taste greatly or can the consumer even notice a difference from a fresh beer to a beer on the shelf for a while?

 

Just another side of the "extreme" coin that so many people seem to value. To quote a recent post from wortandyeast.com, titled "Extreme Burnout":

Continuing down the path of the extreme-for-the-sake-of-being-extreme leads somewhere bad: a place where the claims made are as asinine as international beer brands arguing which of their adjuncts helps create a better time with your friends. Extreme in itself is not bad—we probably wouldn’t have West Coast IPAs or a bunch of other things I appreciate without it.... Knowing that extreme can be just as bad as it can be good is important, though.... The sooner breweries figure it out, the fewer disappointments they’ll probably cause. Even worse, if the disappointment continues, the expectation for beers to be enjoyable may just go away. The words printed on labels could become hollow, and what is an authentic part of the industry could begin to sink into the abyss of corporate commodity-ness.

 

This explanation really needs to be a sticky.

Short version: Yes, in olden times IPAs used hops as a preservative but the hops themselves weren't necessarily a major focal point of the beer. Nowadays, especially with dry hopping, the taste/aroma of the hops is a major component of the overall profile, and that part of the hops (alpha acids I believe) degrades relatively quickly.

Someone else can fill in the gaps or correct me if I'm wrong.

 

"Flatulation punctuates the still night air, and I thank God you're there!" Great song!

While the freshness obsession is a little ridiculous, I agree that anything that encourages bottle dating is a good idea. This was supposed to be on shelves yesterday, but it hasn't showed up yet--I look forward to trying it, regardless.

 

There are quite a few opinions on this topic that can be found HERE about the topic. Hops did start as a preservative like you mentioned in the "olden days", but they are definitely used for the flavor/smell more than their preservative qualities these days, especially in American IPAs.

 

But I'm questioning, what "fresh" means. Would the taste not be the same the first week or second compared to week six and then on?

 

“ …part of the hops (alpha acids I believe) degrades relatively quickly” Replace “alpha acid I believe” with “hop essential oils” and your statement will become a ‘winner’!

Cheers!

 

No, it won't be the same, the bright hop flavors start to fade. The rate at which they fade and what I consider "fresh" changes from beer to beer and brewery to brewery.

Try it for yourself, grab a Ruination and let it sit on your kitchen counter for 2 or 3 months, then grab a super fresh bottle and try them side by side. You will taste a big difference.

 

Since I guess you didn't read the thread I linked to, here's some quotes from our fellow BAs:

That's just a few opinions from the first page.

 

The “taste” of an IPA is heavily influenced by the flavor/aroma hop contributions to an American style IPA. After only a few weeks (e.g., 4 weeks) the hop aroma will fade. Over some additional time (e.g., an additional 4 weeks or so) the hop flavor will fade.

A number of BAs will describe certain IPAs as being extremely ‘sensitive’ to hop aroma/flavor fading. They will make statements like: The hop aroma/flavor of (insert your ‘favorite’ IPA name here) “falls off a cliff” after only one month (or some similar timeframe).

Hop fade in IPAs is a genuine ‘problem’. The interested reader can learn more here:
http://captainsbeerblog.com/2010/03/23/fading-hops/

Cheers!

 

Why are we (again) discussing how hops can fade? As Longstaff pointed out above -- and as I quoted from wortandyeast.com -- the only thing likely "fade" as a result of this one-off release is the credibility of the brewery's other hop-forward product line. Craft brewing is on a slippery slope of championing the same hollow marketing techniques as BMC with stuff like this.

 

I think it's largely a gimmick. Sometime last year I tried to find Ruination that was less than a month old, went to like 4 stores and none had any. Stone nominally cares about freshness, and certainly a lot more than some breweries, but because their normal stuff isn't in super high demand it doesn't turn over and so it's rarely fresh. Which is too bad, but I suppose doesn't matter a lot when I can get Pliny on the day it's bottled.