Do you #SeekTheSeal when buying beer?

In general, I purchase beer from known entities - most, if not all, are independent. The only place I'd vaguely seek the seal is while traveling. Even then, I look for beer made locally, which are almost always independent. On this last trip, the store actually had the miles to each brewery on the cooler doors. This is something I'd like to see more of in the future. and something I personally would seek out. Local beer doesn't mean better beer, but if I'm traveling, 9 times out of 10, I'll try to come home with a selection of local brews that I may never otherwise see in my hometown market, or be worth the shipping money to trade to acquire.

 

AB uses a best by timeframe of 110 days for beers like Bud/Bud Light. From my perspective hoppy beers are even more "delicate" in comparison. For example Stone Brewing has a best by timeframe of 35 days for their product of Enjoy By.

On a related note I have on multiple occasions seen Enjoy By on retailers shelves when they were beyond their prominently listed date.

Cheers!

 

FYI, Stone has a page on their web site to report out of code beer. From what I've heard they actually do follow up on the reports.

 

Is it though? The seal really doesn't say anything about how the brewery does business. All is says is that they aren't owned by a larger, non-craft brewery.

I don't know about 60-70%, but this has been my argument all along. Just because a business is "local" and privately owned, doesn't necessarily mean that your money is going to a good place. With all the PE and silent investors out there, do you really know who you're supporting and what their values are? Even visible owners of independent breweries can be assholes behind closed doors. "Independent" and "local" don't automatically carry a good connotation. Think and drink critically, and do your research if it matters to you. That's the only way around it.

 

Playing some devil's advocate: what about taprooms and breweries planted by non-independent breweries? They hire staff that live locally and spend their money locally. Are they worthy of supporting?

 

@AZBeerDude72

I'll chime in a little here with some insider perspective. Pulling ooc beer is often not as simple as carrying it out to your trunk. State law, store policy, distributor policy (and the contract the brewery has drawn up with them), and brewery policy all come into play. The store is not going to let you carry out or destroy the beer unless they have been compensated for it. That means either buying it back, the distributor picking it up and crediting it via invoice, or swapping out with fresh product of equal value where allowable. Most reps for mid size breweries are going to have a company card, but there's a finite monthly budget there and it needs to be spread evenly across promos, travel expenses, marketing expenses, etc. Many will buy back ooc if it is in a small enough amount, but can't afford to if it is an egregious amount. Generally you want your distributor picking that up and billing back the brewery as necessary (that depends on the contract, though). This is where it gets muddy. Some states are more prohibitive about removing ooc beer from shelves than others. Some distributor policies are more restrictive than others. Sometimes policy is that a distributor rep cannot pick up ooc beer unless it is a full case of uniform product, for example. Sometimes lines of communication with your distributor are not good, for whatever reason, and they don't listen to repeated attempts to have them pull it. If they are more commission-based in compensation, pulling ooc beer could affect their wallet directly and discourage them from doing so.

Since this specific instance is related to Total Wine, I can say that in my past experience with them, they tend to not allow swap-outs even if state law does. It also sounds like this was a pretty egregious amount to expect her to buy it back on her company card. The play, then, might be to pull it from the shelf, set it in the back, and contact the distributor for pickup. I'll note that leaving a gaping hole in the shelf set from pulling it all with nothing available to immediately replace it brings up a whole slew of other possible repercussions to consider and actually may not always be the best move, but I won't touch on those here. Now, I don't know what state law or distributor policy would've been here. Could be that she's asked for pickup before and it isn't getting done. Could be that she isn't allowed to touch it. Not sure.

I guess my point is that she may have been just as frustrated about it as you, but her options were very limited. I wouldn't be so quick to judge.

 

Firstly this was not Total Wine (not sure where you got that from).

Did you read the part:

"She looked at me with a dirty look and stated: "They shouldn't be there".

Well, if it "shouldn't be there" then it should be removed. Pretty simple as far as I am concerned.

If you tell a customer an old product "shouldn't be there" then you should do whatever it takes to rectify the situation.

Cheers!

 

I'll play a little more devil's advocate here too: freshness is a concern for sure, but so is quality control as a whole. What does it matter if your hazy IPA is fresh if it tastes oxidized and sulfury? Promoting fresh beer is great, but doesn't matter for shit if there are problems further upstream. More often than not, I am finding these "upstream" problems in small, newer, local breweries. The regional/mid size breweries generally have more stability in that regard.

I'll also add that there comes a point when promoting fresh beer goes too far. There are some consumers out there that think month old IPA is a problem, and I think that's a problem. OOC beer is one thing, but if your IPA tastes like shit inside of three months, there is a larger issue at play. In that case, yelling DRINK OUR BEER SUPER FRESH!! is not the answer. Education is still the key, and freshness is only a part of the larger QC picture that people sometimes tend to get a little too fixated on.

 

My mistake, I may have confused the Total Wine part from another thread.

She probably didn't handle her interaction with you very well and I cannot comment on whether she handled this the "right" or "wrong" way without more info, but my point still stands. Sometimes the politics of picking up ooc beer are far more involved than the consumer thinks. The solution is not always that simple.

 

I discussed this topic in a past thread:

“...how about the Brewers Association certified the breweries to ensure that quality practices are in place and that the brewers actually perform those practices. This would be voluntary and the 'award' would be that the breweries who participated here get a Quality (control) seal they can place on their labels.”

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...r-quality-problems.587423/page-6#post-6175479

Maybe you have some ideas here?

Cheers!

 

She was the Philly area Firestone Walker Sales Rep. She was in this position for several years prior to my conversation with her. She should have been both very knowledgeable and experienced with the business practices/constraints here.

Cheers!

 

I agree quality control is an issue. With that said most if not all the breweries I visit locally have top end quality control and put out consistent high end beers. I cannot speak for other states, I am sure others are not so skilled and may have poor products. I will only visit/buy from breweries who make good beer, so really it is a non-issue. If I go to a new place and their beer is average or blah I probably won't return, I assume that would apply to most customers.

Most folks I know use the 90 day rule for their IPA's, and around 4-6 weeks for a NEIPA. Other styles are more forgiving so the fresh issue with them is not as critical.

My local guys promote fresh beer but that is just a small aspect of their vision. Most pride themselves in top end ingredients, community, knowledge, etc. I think when you dealing with a well run brewery with experienced people its less an issue verse some people opening a place with visions of $$$$ and no ideas on beer/food/atmosphere. The pile on effect is real so I weed those folks out, its pretty easy to spot a low end/unskilled place.

The big picture we have all been discussing comes back to the large stock of out of date beer sitting around that does impact the industry. It is a real problem that is growing and is why a lot of people will just go to their local brewery that they know and trust and buy direct. Eventually this snowballs and you have even more shelf turds gathering dust, and the cycle continues.

"yelling DRINK OUR BEER SUPER FRESH!!" - I never heard a serious brewery or brewer do this by the way, if they make top end beer it speaks for itself without advertising. I would assume you could hear such a thing from a low end place.

Cheers

 

You can count me as one of those "folks".

Cheers!

 

A lot of breweries have 1-800#s so you can report this very issue, a lot then do pull the product. If what your saying is true then how is it that they can? I saw some product out of date, reported to the brewery and within days when I returned it was gone.

I don't think the politics is as deep as you think, I think it comes down to $$ and maybe some breweries are willing to pay to remove products verse others who are not.

Cheers

 

I buy what I enjoy and like, and only notice the 'seal' when I am checking into Untappd and get a badge for it.

 

I do not actively seek out the seal, but most of what I buy does qualify. Notable exception would ne Founders, but I am not going to avoid buying beers I truly enjoy because it doesn't have the seal.

The date code thing - I think we're dancing around the real issue. Simply, there's more beer made than sold - supply far exceeds demand. Doesn't matter if it is local, regional, or national brands - too many choices and we're not a particularly brand-loyal lot. Brand loyalty in general is pretty low.

There's too many beers on shelf and some make little sense to be here. I can walk into any packy here in southeastern MA or RI and find dozens of out of state beers, including NEIPAs, sitting on the shelf with the rest aging by the minute. I look at some of the breweries available here and just wonder "why" - I can get the same thing from ten other New England based breweries so why are smallish breweries trying to sell products far from their home turf? Once in a while I can see it, but why is Toppling Goliath regularly on shelf here trying to beat out the local (presumably fresher) beers of similar style and quality, for example? They both end up sitting by what I've seen.

In my opinion, this situation has existed for a very long time and eventually there will be some hard rain falling.

 

Other than a neat label grabbing my eye, I don't purchase based on the label. The places I buy beer at don't really have the brands that aren't independent anyways so its not a concern.

 

I'm in CA, but very strongly agree with what you're saying. There are a number of beers that just sit and sit and sit - good beers in their own right, but that are entirely lost in the flood. It's a really weird dynamic (at least to my empirical observation) right now: overpriced collaboration/one-time 4-packs and $5-8 single cans sell out, while as-good-if-not-better beers from established, reputable breweries languish. At some point that can't be sustainable, on one end or the other.

As to the logo discussion - given the gymnastics that the BA does to maintain certain breweries being considered craft, I give the logo little to no concern. Like many others here, I have my personal list, and that's what i go by. The silly little logo is not meant for the educated consumer.

 

It usually is on the bottle or can I buy.