Old IPAs - What to do about this problem?

If you are talking about the cans, they are stamped on the outside of the cardboard box on one of the ends, at least those I have seen around Houston are

 

I find it amusing with people having a cow over IPA's more than two months old when it used to take the ORIGINAL IPA's that much time or more to get from England to India by ship, sailing through the tropics with NO refrigeration, by way of the Cape of Good Hope! I'm surprised the colonists in India put up with it!

 

call me a snob but I only buy Sea Hag from Packy"s.
I go to breweries for my Hops.

 

Really? I wouldn't think most breweries would want the bother of selling hops (pellets or whole flower?) directly to consumers - having to package, weigh and sell them.

Seems like it would have to be done by someone other than the bartender at the brewery since the storage facility would not be at the bar/growler station, unless they're prepackaged. Do they also sell other ingredients (yeast, malt) or supplies (bottles, crowns)?

 

It was probably the only choice, and folks pay big money for Barrel aged stuff these days. Cask conditioned with tropical heat, no ones doing that anymore, think of the bucks they could reel in. Plus boat rocked dry hopped. Think of the IBU's.

 

All over Orange County too. Exceptional. Cheers!

 

wow. I just heard about this behavior from a friend of mine at a local store, only w/r/t various IPAs from Odd13. He's seriously thinking about cutting access to the "back room" (which is currently wide open to customers) as a result. This is a beer that is ordered and sells through such that the stuff on the shelf is dated, say 10/09, at a time when the newest delivery in the back might be, say, 10/23. That is, it moves fast and there isn't a lot to go around in the first place, so there aren't pallets and pallets of each batch delivered to each craft store.

People were unstacking the cases--he puts the new ones on the bottom, which is a little time consuming in itself--to get at the new stuff, which really fucks up his ability to manage inventory for freshness. He's put up sign asking people not to do this. We'll see how well it works. but think about what you are doing to your favorite retailer when you do things like this, please.

 

My favorite retailer and I have a symbiotic relationship in that he stocks beer in exchange for which I give him money. He also lets me sort through the stock picking out the most recent stuff and neither of us has a problem with that.

 

Have to agree, just had four of their beers and Beachwood is the perfect West Coast Style, clean bitter, lots of flavors, super easy to drink with the perfect body and carb. Thanks @2beerdogs !

 

this made me laugh. touche on the trolling

 

I've found if you go to Bevmo you need to check the dates on the beer. They will have some stuff that's been sitting there for months.

We were at World Market a few months ago looking at some of the great beer they had and some of it was a YEAR old.

I buy a lot of beer at Monument Liquors in Concord because they have a great selection and most of the stuff in the fridge is fresh, but I bought some of their European beers they have on the side and it turns out some of it was a year and a half old.

 

Ouch, same here. I'm embarrassed to think on how many years I bought beer by brand without any thought as to it's age or condition.

 

The first part of the wall at Bestway is all local stuff, every style, always fresh. I can count about 10 fresh IPAs at any one time. I don't need Alpine or Knee Deep.

 

The first time I had SN Torpedo was a $3 bomber dated over a year old. At the time I didn't even think or care about freshness. Nowadays I check for dates mainly because of you folks.

 

I've become totally spoiled by good local IPA's. They're so good fresh that after about three weeks I feel like they're too old. It's great to buy a can that's a couple of days old.

 

Four or five years back i brought a 12 pack of SN. celebration Ale to my folks on Christmas eve... well more than a year later those beers were still on target. So many variables go into taste that its really hard to judge . I ve had beers from the same six pack that seemed different in the span of a week , it might be as simple as a clean or wrecked palate.

 

Why make a sign when you could just put the fresh cases somewhere else?

 

Somewhere else? There is no cold "somewhere else." He can either ask his customers not to move cases to get to the freshest delivery, or he can exclude customers from the cold room. We wouldn't like that though. There are special goodies in there we like to peruse and sometimes when we feel rich, actually buy, and have done so for years. It is a privilege nurtured by the fact that this is or has been a community of trust bound by a mutual love of great beer. Until this recent freshness craze there hasn't been any problem.

Or he could, I guess, spend an ass load of money and give up some sales space, to rebuild his store so he has a second, private cold room. Beer margins don't justify that, though.

You get that I am talking about (typically) the one-week-old versus three-week-old releases of a beer that may or may not rhyme with "trooper van," right? That some entitled people think they have the right to reshuffle case stacks so that they get A SIXER of the one week old stuff before the last 2-3 cases of the three-week-old stuff is gone?

 

Old IPAs ? Let them sit,

 

I agree with the OP, the time sensitive styles are very old by the time they are stocked at some of the shops in the area except for local. I have seen Port City beers consistently within a week or so of bottling.