The craft beer industry: beer quality problems

Easy to find, read, and interpret “Brewed On/Best By” dates. I’ll take it from there (with the help of the fine folks from BeerAdvocate.com like you and our NBS friends, of course).

 

I was visiting my brother-in-law this weekend. He’s a nascent beer nerd. Whilst we were enjoying a couple of tasty IPA’s, he said he’d had the first Surly beer that he didn’t enjoy, Overrated, their West Coast-style IPA which I like a lot.

A while later, I went to fetch a couple of beers and had the opportunity to check the canned on date that Surly so clearly affixes to their cans, and has since ..... forever.

The canned on date, clear as a bell: 9/27/17. Nearly a year old, he had purchased it in Chicago a couple of weeks ago.

That’s on my fantastic bro-in-law, IMHO (not that I had the heart to tell him that).

And then there’s the Surly Abrasive story that I can only tell whilst meditating in a Zen trance.

 

Of course I do, but I won’t be so cocksure as to assume it’s about beer.

Didn’t intend for my comment to come across as me thinking the Seal is synonymous with ‘good’, but after rereading it I can see how it was taken that way. The proximity of my words to “Bud’s born on” blurb was intended to suggest that BA might be desirous and perhaps even envious of a similar type connection in the minds of the consumer.....words I didn't type, but should have.
Just as Bud instilled in me the thought that their stuff is fresh because of the steps they took to ensure and inform me of that freshness, could BA be employing a similar tactic, over time, to instill a connection with their seal and ‘good’, regardless of whether merited?
To be clear, I can say without a doubt the seal does not equate to ‘good’ in my mind. Good is akin to quality and, as mentioned by @Roadkizzle and in too many other places to enumerate, quality depends on a very subjective viewpoint. The seal, as I understand it, is granted to those who meet an unarguably defined set of criteria, none of which are subjective.

Misreading, unlikely. Misinterpreting, more likely. I concede misinterpretation might have been caused by ineffective wording on my part, and hopefully it was satisfactorily addressed above. (you coulda gone directly to the source, he don’t bite )

I need someone to code a good calendar calculator app for my Samsung Galaxy watch....would sure beat "thirty days hath September...."

Did part of that campaign include TV commercials?

 

I'd have a list as well, how to actually do it is another story. But a brewery like Buriel seems to do ok with the distro/ sales ratio, I've never seen an old beer on the shelf. Others not so much, why keep pushing it out if it's not selling?

 

It's so interesting to me to see that so much of the "quality" discussion has come down to date codes... I started off dating cans with a canned on and best by date with the best by changing according to beer style. Wet hop NEIPA's I think got 4 weeks last year and our dry hopped sour got 6 months. Our ink jet printer ran out of ink and I had trouble getting it reordered, then it just started slipping my mind... Our NEIPA's are delivered to retailers within 2 days of canning and they typically sell out from the retailers within 24-48 hours of the release. Our customers seem to know about our dedication to fresh product, so the date code is a low priority item for me. In fact, I want the date code more for my own sanity than anything.

 

Yikes... I get "free" beer from my brewery. I take home about a case from every release and if I don't drink it when it's fresh (or really, by the time of the next can release, normally about two weeks later) I'll throw it away and buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

 

Wha?

Who can forget "Gus the Budweiser Delivery Man"?

(And, no, he wasn't one of the frogs...)

 

Well as a buyer with zero brewing knowledge I'd assume your beers are intended to be enjoyed fresh. So define fresh? Are your beers intended to be consumed at 6 months old or 6 weeks? Which one makes it a bit easier to be profitable and predictable? For some styles dates codes are important as well as how the distributor handles your beers. If dates codes aren't important to you your beers might not be that important to potential buyers. There's more than a few no date no buy guys.

 

Weedy yours is a commendable approach that alas is not shared by other brewers whose primary concern is to sell every drop they can make as fast as they can make it and expand to ever farther markets as quickly as the distributors can tote the product. It matters not a whit to them their branded product may not be well treated in transit, storage or how old it is when sold to a consumer. For them it's a numbers game.

 

I know some folks in Tombstone that will dispose of that surplus beer for 'ya free of charge.

 

Its a good look! But certainly not one limited to big beer:
https://www.stonebrewing.com/freshness#ageGatePassed
https://www.firestonebeer.com/beers/fresh-beer.php
https://www.dogfish.com/blog/when-was-your-dogfish-head-bottled-check-neck

I’m glad you brought up the German thing, because IMHO, Euro imports are some of the worst offenders. Factor that year + spending time crossing the ocean...

Your opinion on hoppy beers is certainly shared by many (including myself), but I think it’s important to note that many brewers appreciate the flavor changes that a little age provides an IPA. That fresh, green happiness might be what the many crave, but others prefer the more subdued hop character, balanced by stronger malt presence.

Kimmich had a great video talking about this. Basically, for many brewers, ~6 months does not make an IPA ‘old’, just different.

 

The distributor aspect of the equation is huge. We are sort of a self distribution brewery... We have a limited distribution agreement with an awesome distributor that charges us a delivery fee rather than buying our beer and marking it up. They use refrigerated trucks, so the beer goes straight from our canning line to the walk-in or to their truck, then gets delivered cold to the retailers. From there, it's almost always sold out within 48 hours and I would say "most" of the time, within 24 hours.

My definition of fresh for our NEIPA's is 6 weeks. We have several regulars that post on social media how they drink those beers from us after 6 months (intentionally) with positive reviews... I hate that part of it, which is why I really want the date codes. That's why I think it's more for my own peace of mind than anything.

That said, to make the comment that our beer might not be important to potential buyers... It hasn't hurt our sales in the months since we last used the dates. However, I DO want the dates on the cans. I've reached out to VideoJet 5 times in the last 4 months. IDK, why they're so terrible at filling orders, but it's also not a concern at this point from a sales perspective.

 

I'll have to think on this... I don't think date codes are an essential part of the equation though. My initial reaction is that a quality seal is not realistic, but maybe I'll think up a way.

 

Sounds like a reciepe for success for me, your controlling your own destiny. I'm just a Joe blow beer guy, but the worst thing that could happen to a Brewer is to make shelf turds. Wish you success.

 

This thread is conflating three (at least 3) completely different topics:

1. Beer quality.
2. Brewing quality control.
3. Date stamping / old beer.

Starting at the bottom, the government has little to no jurisdictional interest in mandating date stamping. While it is true that old beer tastes sub-par to awful, it is not a food safety issue. The government has no business here any more than it has an interest in mandating the "taste goodness" of fried pickles at the state fair. Safety, yes. Tastes good? Not their problem. It COULD, however, be part of a Brewers Association quality control initiative. Which brings us to #2...

The BA could (should they so choose & have the funds to follow-up) put in place quality CONTROL guidelines, with a quality seal granted only after a quality control audit. For reference, see ISO 9001 as an example of a quality control audit process.


Such a program by the BA would not be cheap, but it would be a valuable service to the craft beer industry, IMO. To get the seal, the brewer would have to demonstrate sufficient brewing knowledge about the basics, plus sufficient internal documentation and production controls to produce the intended beer time after time.

Note well: This has little to do with #1. In other words, a brewer could brew awful-tasting beer and still pass the quality control audit. But, presumably, that would be because he intended all along to make that awful-tasting beer and knows how to repeat that process to produce the same product time after time.

 

Won't help. Firestone was ISO Certified and their tires blew out on the Ford Explorers.

 

You confuse quality with quality control. A frequent thing around here.

 

Look at this from a consumer point of view, the shelves right now are filled with beers that are great if they're fresh, but those beers sitting on those shelves are sometimes out of date, sometimes 8 months old. I pulled a a Stone special release IPA off the shelf at Total Wine and it was out of date, I went and handed it to an employee. Stone didn't want that beer bought and consumed, it's bad for business. Does it cost that much per bottle to date it? Are you trying to fool people? I think in some cases the Brewer doesn't want to know how old their beer is so they don't have to perhaps buy it back. As a consumer unless it's a new release I won't buy it if it's an age sensitive beer without a date. Some local breweries make it a point of pride to date their beers and they say so, it's why Enjoy By was such a hit. And quality does come down to beers being optimal when they're bought and consumed.