Very quick Southampton Double White question

Brewing is not an exact science. A difference of 0.1 ABV is not in any way remarkable and is well withing the limits of error allowed by the regulatory agencies who approve the labels. Aging a beer doesn't have much effect on ABV unless the beer is bottle conditioned. In which case the ABV may go up a bit as the yeast consumes the sugar added at the time of bottle conditioning.

 

Did this beer used to be higher than 6.6/6.7 or am I imagining things? Thought it used to be 8%-ish...

 

Southampton's contract-brewed 12 ounce bottles & kegs have bounced from brewery to brewery the last half dozen years or so, from Olde Saratoga/Mendocino to - when they were associated with Pabst - The Lion and City-Latrobe, and now back again at Olde Saratoga/Mendocino. They even had their IPA done at Genesee briefly after leaving City. (And that doesn't even consider the 750ml's coming from Sly Fox.)

Most of those old labels didn't list ABV, but of those that did it was 6.6% from both Lion and City.

The Feds have a tolerance of ±0.3% when a brewery chooses to list ABV, so this 0.1% difference doesn't necessarily imply a change of recipe.

 

I think his fear was that since the beer he bought is a different ABV from the site, that this beer is now brewed at a different ABV and it was an indication that the bottle he bought was old.

 

I was thinking exactly the same thing. I know it drank like 8ish which took me by surprise.