The science behind beer degradation

OP honestly its not worth your time. Its obvious they are never going to change their way of thinking. Any beer drinker knows how age impacts certain styles of beer especially very hop forward beers. If a brewery is going to deny this and state otherwise then why expend a moment on them, they won't listen.

I equate this to the coffee industry. They sit and sell crap that is old and call it fresh. Anyone who knows coffee knows the real shelf life but we see cans/bags over a year old on shelves and they consider it fresh. This example is sort of the same thing.

Cheers

 

I don't know - it is a LOT easier to find and/or understand the date codes on US beers (and many imports) today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. I'd say that some of that is based on consumer demand/complaints.

 

True, I think a lot of the change here had to do with consumers wanting the info. I think the beer culture here is a lot different though. I guess the big question is are consumers as interested elsewhere? The breweries there would change if people demanded it and it impacted sales etc. Any Ba folk from that part of the world who can give us some views into the local scene and if there is a movement for things like this?

 

agree with the folks that it's too nebulous to pin down. hell, the brewer of heady topper says his beer tastes best (to him) at 9 (?) weeks when the geeks will insist it's ruined by then

 

asking the koebes for freshness dates on the bottles sounds like something from koelner legend. can only imagine their reactions and (rehearsed) surliness. ha!

I disagree that them (and others) not knowing offhand meant no one much cares about freshness there. to me it would seem that people buying from the source simply *expect* freshness...and, as the brewer points out, almoat always receive it

 

Na, its got 3 more weeks on it if you use the old 90 rule for IPA. Even then its probably fine but will it be as intended, I guess not but I am sure its still tasty. I always leave it up to the consumer, in the end they know how flavors change for each style they drink.

 

I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding you completely @Snowcrash000
I thought your first post was indicating that you've already figured out the shelf life dates set by the brewers from asking them directly and now you want scientific evidence to show them the importance of setting more appropriate best-by dates. I'm confused.

 

I think this is the graph you are thinking about:



The above is from Dr. Charlie Bamforth and is predicated upon the Arrhennius Equation. As can be easily discerned, beer at room temperature will show signs of staling at around 100 days; this is consistent with AB's best by duration for a beer like Budweiser (which is 110 days).

How long a beer will still be good is also a function of beer style. For example, Stone Brewing states that for their hoppy beers (e.g., Stone IPA) they are best consumed within 90 days of packaging.

Cheers!

 

It's probably unlikely that a brewer will tell you that they do not believe the dates they are putting on their product. Does a politician say that he's lied? But fortunately, it doesn't ultimately matter much anyway, because what matters more is confidently knowing your personal preferences outside of the external noise of conventional wisdom, brewers, BeerAdvocate, best-by date codes, graphs, etc. (despite the value of those things).

 

@Snowcrash000 You might find some useful information in this old [closed] discussion too: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/old-ipas.177842/
By page 2 brewers like Starkbier (Victory), Bulletrain76 (Firestone Walker), Peter_Wolfe (AB-InBev), and a few others jump with a lot of technical details on staling, packaging, storage, etc.

I bet @Peter_Wolfe knows something about that subject.

 

I just wanna say I miss your old Tom Waits avatar

 

This leaves me scratching my head because I view Germany as the land of unpasteurized wheat beers and I doubt any brewer would let those go for that long. Do you think they're still operating under the "Hops are a preservative, that's how the IPAs made it from England to India back in the day" misconception (for lack of a better term)?

 

Are there any craft centric stores or distributors starting up in Germany? Or are distributing brewers basically beholden to the large retailers/ distributors and their demands?