Ballast Point returns to CO

Got my popcorn ready

 

Seems an odd forum to be trolling for a member since... thursday. In Elites defense I do not work for them and am not privy to their profit margins. I do know the business from buying beer for the last eight years here in CO and dealing just about every distributor on the Front Range. Delivering beer out of date is no good thing. I do also know from talking to not only breweries but importers as well that Elite holds it's margins very tightly (most companies do). Also refusing to pick up dated beer is against Colorado Liquor Statutes and leaving it on shelves just looks bad. Many of the products Elite carries, as with every distributor, do not have dates on the bottles, only the mother carton (and only if you are lucky). Without the knowledge of when the product was shipped or arrived at the store... only the store and Elite would know how long it's been there. To which I bring this question... how do you know?

The vast majority of Elite's portfolio isn't on a shelf, or a warehouse, or a truck... it's on paper or in cellars spread across the state.

 

Green Flash? Bear Republic? Stop it.

 

Of course, I'm no fan of old beer, but I can understand how difficult it is to consistently put fresh beer on the shelves. With one-timers like Enjoy-By, it would be rather easy. Bur regular lineups would be a headache.

I'd prefer not to have so many out-of-state beers. It would make traveling that much more fun and those beers that much more enjoyable.

 

I'd just prefer fewer out-of-state shelf turds.

 

poor StarSlinger! he doesn't know how many current or former on-premise or off-premise retailers are on this thread, all of whom have bought tons of beer at wholesale, some for many many years, from many wholesalers in more than one state.

As a former NFL tight end once told me, you can bullshit the fans but you can't bullshit the players.

 

This is incorrect, was the last batch of Pliny distributed old? I believe it was bottled 4 or 5 days prior to hitting the Colorado market two weeks ago. Elite's policy is to pickup dated beer and a very strong emphasis has recently begun to have the freshest beer in the marketplace. Yes in the past there have been a couple of breweries that the freshness of the beer has become a factor. This has been recognized and stricter policies were put in place to rectify this going forward. To overgeneralize and say a vast majority of the beer is dated is simply a exaggeration. There are a lot of factors why beers may become dated on shelves. This is usually a store by store or brewery by brewery basis. Some factors include... proper rotation by store, proper rotation by distributor, denying deliveries close to date range (both distributor and retailer), shipping logistics for small craft breweries, and some beer just doesn't sell on shelves and gets old. Sometimes this slips past the store and rep, when brought to the reps attention it should be removed immediately. Elite distributes a lot of great craft beer in the Colorado market. Elite has helped facilitate bringing some of the best breweries in the world to Colorado.

Elite is a family run, locally owned company that has one of the strongest reputations in the markets. Dealing with so many limited beers and thousands of account and buyers, you are never going to make everyone 100% happy (when you have 2 - 6 packs of Cantillon allocated and 100 accounts in your territory that equals 98 upset customers). However, Elite has one of the strongest reputations in the markets for a good reason. As a fellow beer enthusiast and someone very passionate about what I do, I take a lot of pride in working for such a great company. Elite continually takes feedback from our customers, suppliers and employees to continually improve and strives to be the best at what we do. I can not say the same for anywhere else that I have worked for. I typically prefer to have private and direct conversations on beer advocate rather than go back and forth in a venue such as this. However it is very frustrating to see misinformation continually posted. I would be happy to help clear up any further confusion on anything I may be of assistance with. I do not post often yet try to communicate directly to people about questions that I may be able to help with. Colorado has an amazing craft beer community. I appreciate the enthusiasm and passion everyone exhibits for craft beer here. I do believe we all are in the craft beer movement together and everyone from the brewery, distributor, retailers and consumer play an integral part. 'A rising tide lifts all boats' Hopefully someday we can all discuss this further over some great brews! Cheers!

P.S. I am just curious was anyone posting here at the Saison or Small Batch tasting a few weeks back? I am sure from past tastings/beer festivals most of us have run into each other one time or another. Sometimes it is hard to put a name/face to a beer advocate handle.

 

Well if you hear or know anything about Ballast Point holding back until they get some stock here, please send them our concern about holding back Sculpin and Big Eye

 

What is the law regarding out of date beer and distributors in Colorado? Colorado Brewers Guild and Brewers Association seem not to know. Some distributors will buy back old beer, some will replace, some won't do a darn thing. Case deals in large quantities will surely propagate an increase in expired beer on shelves along with empty shelves at other locations.

 

So why are Green Flash and Bear Republic beers never fresh? I saw a bottle of Hop Head Red the other day that was dated 7/12/2012.

 

The next time I see a Port IPA that isn't 4-5 months old will be the first time. Similar experience with Green Flash (other than the batch Palate Wrecker earlier this year). And using Pliny as an example is not really a good one, we get shipments maybe once a month and they sell out in a day or two, and the brewer of that beer is obsessive about making sure people get it fresh.

But you might want to have a conversation with Argonaut, since they seem to get the biggest allocation of Pliny of anyone in town and 1) they don't keep it cold, and 2) sometimes they sit on it for a while rather than put it all out on the shelf, like they did around GABF time last year.

But cheers to you for chiming in, the more we get industry people involved in these discussions the better. We do appreciate it.

 

Probably because we have better equivalent beers brewed in CO, I honestly can't remember the last GF or BR beer I had (Silva excluded). Probably Hop Rod Rye, another though that must be fresh for me to purchase.

Seeing an old beer on the shelf I am actually not sure if it's been on the shelf that long or distributed that old.

 

I've seen both.

 

As far as I know, granted I am not an expert in Colorado liquor laws on all matters, there is no law or policy regarding out of date beer. In fact technically I would think under Colorado state law it would be illegal due so and would be considered consignment. Most distributors I know of though do pickup dated beer but is a distributor by distributor basis, or sometimes even by rep or account. Consignment comes more into play for liquor and wine. I have seen reps use this as reason they can not take back a product. That is rare though because most reps do not want to jeopardize future business. Consignment basically means after I believe 30 days it is illegal to pickup a product simply because it did not sell, this is illegal. As you mentioned large case deals do not help in keeping the freshest beer possible as well.

I will certainly be more conscious of the beer dates and will be checking a few out of state ipa's date on the shelves and in the warehouse this week. By the way, biased as I may be, I would take a green flash wc ipa or racer 5 ipa two months old properly stored over 95% of other ipa's in the market. Racer 5 I think is a benchmark example of an IPA and is bottle conditioned too.

A quick side note, as an industry I think this is something Brewery Reps, Distributors and Retailers can do a hell of a lot better job at and that is properly cold store IPA's at liquor stores. This is across the board issue. Most brewers preach how they only want their beers kept cold or not in that store at all. Most brewers do not have the means to monitor how their beer is stored once it hit the retailers. They control a lot of the process before that though. I cringe when i see huge displays of IPA's and Double IPA's all over town. When push comes to shove, very few breweries or reps turn down a floor display or even shelf placements on a dry shelf at risk of losing sales. Telling people how to run their business is always a tricky area though and polite suggestions can always be made. Kudos to the breweries who follow through on their statements that they do not want the dry shelf and/or floor display placements for such beers.

 

Obviously subjective but I think California has Colorado blown away overall in the quality of IPA's being produced. I know a lot of beer people who tend to agree. There are a handful of Colorado IPA's I really enjoy and would put against from anywhere but like I said just a few. Don't get me wrong, I love Colorado beer and think there is some of the best beer in the country coming out of here but as far as IPA's, California is king in my book. This is obviously subjective but rating sites and medals tend to back this up as well. Now as far as freshness is concerned and out of state beers that has been so eloquently discussed here, that is a separate issue.

 

That is crazy and unacceptable. Do you mind messaging me privately where that was so it can be addressed? I am on the streets and am not involved in the ordering process, trucking logistics etc. however I can promise I will continue to look into these issues with the breweries mentioned. This issue has been discussed in the past from all parties involved and will be improved further. Trust me, the brewer, distributor and retailer wants to sell the freshest beer possible and not give any consumer any reason not to buy their products. Feedback to improve is appreciated in my book, politely of course. These are too good of beers to be overlooked due to an issue that should and can be fixed.

 

I am certainly not StarSlinger but certainly know him and I can tell you he is one of the best around in the industry. Cheers to fresher to beer!