Fresh year-round beer in stores

While there is a lot, there just aren't enough!

 

Maybe it's because I have a small town supermarket, but the craft beer turn over lends itself to very fresh beer. We usually have beers ahead of other locations, but all the "good" major craft brewers (Sam's, Bell's, Saranac, Brooklyn, Goose, Magic Hat, Otter Creek) are well under 2 months old. That goes for the year round stuff as well.

 

Hoppin' Frog, Thirsty Dog, GLBC, Fat Head's, The Brew Kettle&Jackie O's for the time being. I do plan on checking out Canton Brewing very soon, perhaps within a few days.

 

Just an FYI, but a lot of beers, even some hoppy ones (SN being a prime example) are perfectly fine after 60 days of age. Yes, I prefer beer as fresh as possible, but that doesn't mean a 60 day old beer is necessarily bad.

 

That's a good point to which I agree. I don't think of 60 days, or any other specified time period, as creating a bright line beyond which I won't buy, but it is one of my considerations. SN is to be commended for the extra care they take in cleaning up and bottling their product thus extending shelf life.

What no brewer can do though is control how their product is shipped, stored, distributed and displayed. That's why I have self imposed limits on how old I will accept and that largely depends on the style of brew.

 

Well, obviously the brewers who choose to self-distribute in the more than half of the US states that allow it can control all those factors, and as for the brewers using distributors, that claim of yours was contradicted in numerous posts in the California Beers and Freshness thread, including posts by distributor rep @IceAce (here and in a few others posts in that thread), and by sierranevadabill, who stated in part:

 

Any number of OR and CA brews fill this criteria for me.

 

Are you having trouble finding beer that fits the criteria you listed? If so, it could be where you are shopping.

 

Contradicted but not disproved. Let's get our facts straight here, I stopped posting on those threads out of respect for the posters mentioned and because I didn't wish to be thought of as argumentative. Instead I went out to see for myself and this is what I learned:

Shipment: The trucks arriving at our distributors are not air conditioned. I verified this by talking to warehouse employees who unload those trucks and by driving by the distributor's unloading dock to see the trucks myself. From there the distributors ship out to our local stores using unairconditioned dry box trucks. I verified this by talking to the drivers and looking over the trucks themselves in our local store parking lots.

Storage: Our local distributors do not air condition their warehouses, or, if so, do that only partially. This I verified from the employees who work in the warehouse and load trucks for local distribution. All of them when asked "Is your warehouse air conditioned" replied "No". Except for one senior rep who said "Yes, part of is", to which I asked "which part, the office" and to that he laughed and shrugged without commenting further.

Display: It is entirely up to the store how beer is shelved and displayed. Store managers who handle that tell me by far the majority of their beer sales are Bud-Miller-Coors and the stuff that sells best gets most of the cooler space.

The only air conditioned container beer trucks I've found locally are all Bud-Miller-Coors. That's it, craft stuff moves in dry box units. The weather here today is bright sunshine and 94 degrees. It's a lot warmer inside those trucks.

My experience is local though, I cannot comment on how things are done elsewhere. If our BA members around the country share my curiosity I encourage them to go see for themselves what local conditions are. Drive over to the local distributor and take a look at the arriving trucks. If there is no air conditioning unit on front of the container the inside is at least as warm as the outside. Drive around back of your local store and see if the beer is being delivered by a dry box truck. Call the distributor and/or speak to employees asking if the warehouse is air conditioned. Your experience may be different, I can only speak to mine.

 

But you stated:

Not sure you can make such an absolute statement about every brewer in the country after visiting a handful of local Mississippi distributors, or without taking into consideration the numerous local brewers elsewhere in the country who self-distribute and control not only "...how their product is shipped, stored, distributed..." but also how it is "displayed" at the retail level - that is, some brewers will refuse to supply beer to stores that will not refrigerate it.

 

Nailed it
Very true, about shipment. As most beer is loaded the night before. and sits there until the truck is picked up and unloaded the next morning.

 

you did read the last paragraph he wrote say and quoted
"My experience is local though, I cannot comment on how things are done elsewhere."

 

Please quote me accurately jess, you left the word 'what' off the front of my sentence. I stand by the statements I made, beer arrives here hot, is stored hot, distributed hot and comes to room temperature on the grocery store shelves. Once it gets here that's how it's treated from all craft brewers irrespective of contractual agreements.

 

I would say that no brewer can "completely" control shipping, storage, all aspects of further distribution, and retail display arrangements.

 

And you did not read my comment - one cannot make a blanket statement about every brewer in the country by visiting a couple of Mississippi wholesaler distributors.

Yet he DID comment on elsewhere, claiming that "no brewer" controls those factors.

Yeah, I did accidentally when I added the ellipsis, but I corrected it in the edit. So, how would that one word - "What" - change the nature of your comment about "no brewer"? "No" is pretty unambiguous.

 

I find many within the two month window but probably just as many outside the two month window. I hate when I see something newly put out on the floor/shelves from say, Firestone Walker, and it's already 2-3 months from bottling. Come on, you can do better. I would probably return more to core/flagship beers if they arrived fresher.

 

sculpin

 

I hear you!

I buy groceries at a local Wegmans that also has a beer store within it. For the past month+ I have noted that they are constantly replenishing the Firestone beers with beers that were bottled/canned in March. All that I can think is that the Wholesale Distributor bought a 'shit ton' of Firestone Walker beer of that timeframe and they are constantly selling from that stock to the retailers?

Cheers!

P.S. I bought a 6-pack of Union Jack that was canned in March but I made that purchase in April.

@RobH

 

Fresh year round offerings. I can say Kent falls, Sip and Gandhi. Are the only year round releases that are fresh in my state other than the typical Bud Heavy, bud light , And Miller/Coors

 

Used to live in WV several years ago, in a town where the best beer selection came from a convenience store that was mostly gas and lottery sales but went the extra mile to keep good beer on the shelves for a mostly uncaring clientele. I cared. They kept me alive. But anyway, this was before SN opened in Asheville and I remember getting Sierra Pale less than two weeks from bottling in Chico to the backwoods of Almost Heaven. It was not heaven. But well done Sierra Nevada!