Old or expired beer

Speaking of, after the joy of the Dark Brut, I recently grabbed a Malheur 10 with a best by date of... I don't know... 2011?
Codes . I'm not losing sleep over it.

 

Dude 10 and 12 are superior with excessive age on them. 12 was still hoppy even after my last 2010 bottle. They are hard to read my latest bottle of 12 read something like this LE:13 or something on that lines.

 

Probably the safest choice, though. I'm sure you've tasted well-expired beer before and it's... Not pleasant.

 

I buy old beer sometimes because in my area some stores knock down the prices and put them on a clearance rack. I picked up a Merry Mischief today for $2.49 as an example.

 

I've become more judicious than I used to be - I'll pass up a beer that's past it's prime, regardless of my "want" level.
It's not fair to me or the beer.

 

I've bought some Mikkeller sours that had a couple years on them and A Widmer Brothers SXNW Strong Ale that had about 4 years on it from a bottle shop that I frequent.

I wasn't crazy about the sours and have yet to try to strong ale but have high hopes.

If I come across a stout though I'll pick it up in an instant. I'm a gambler. I love a game of chance.

 

We had a bottle of Mikkeller/Brewdog's "I Hardcore You" that had been sitting on the shelf of our bar, in the light, for years. Then sat in an office for months. Then I thought, why not? Put it in the cooler for a week and broke it out for a manager meeting just to see what a "bad beer" would taste like. Definitely not an IIPA anymore. Some floaties could be seen. The smell reminded me of a barleywine - sweet, alcohol-y, not much hop obviously. The taste was sorta barleywiney too. I don't know. It was a cool experiment. We knew the outcome wouldn't be that great, but at least I know now.

 

Picked this one up today, not knowing anything about it, and........

Then I poured it...


That doesn't look good......



And now I know why............

 

Went to my bottle shop, where I have the selection pretty well memorized, and I saw SN estate homegrown in the bomber door. I mistook it for Southern Hemisphere, or some other beer that would be new, and bought it. Got it home and realized it's from 2014. Checked the profile for the beer and there are several ratings from the last few weeks.

I guess my question is how can a beer that is six months old appear "new" on the shelf? Did it date out at some other store and the distributor dumped it at my shop?

 

The distributor told the store I'll hook you up with an extra case of hoptimum if you can take this old estate ale off my hands and pawn it off on an unsuspecting customer. Looks like it worked.

 

Well... Sometimes cases of beer take a while to get from distributor to retailer. So it's also possible it could have been sitting in the warehouse for months, or the back room of your shop. In any event you've learned a couple of useful lthings.

The first is that your shop isn't very careful about bottle dates and about not selling you old beer. They accepted delivery on it whenever they got it and could have refused to buy it up front and/or they could have pulled it from the shelf when they saw it was out of code. The other is that there is are reasons why some of us don't buy undated beer and make a habit of checking dates before purchase.

 

As someone who spends more than they are comfortable with admitting on craft beer, I always compare prices. As someone who drinks more craft beer than they are comfortable with admitting, I also always compare freshness. Anyway, I recently saw sixers of Dale's @ 6.99 and with a canning date of 8 weeks prior. I was a little skeptic, but I'm used to seeing Dale's at 8.99 or 9.99, so I went for it, and regretted it. This was not the Dale's I've come to respect. It was dull. I know that malt forward beers like stouts age more gracefully, but what do you think is a good rule of thumb, time wise, to avoid pale ales and IPAs after they have been packaged?

 

I only drink Dale's on tap, and only go to solid, up to date places that serve it. If I do drink it out of a can, I don't look at the canned on date, but rather the slogan on the bottom. Dale's is always awesome.

To answer your question, best always.

 

8 weeks isn't even quite two months, so unless I had reason to believe that the particular beer I was considering buying dropped off insanely, abnormally fast I would definitely buy an IPA or pale ale of that age, especially if the price was 2 or 3 dollars below normal.

Heck, most of the full-price hoppy beers I've had were in the range of 2 to 3 months old. They'd been kept refrigerated most (if not all) of the time they'd been on the shelves, so that probably helped them not "age" so much... but still, if 2 or 3 month old beer is considered "old" then I haven't had very much "young" beer. I guess maybe some beers fall off much faster than others, even within the IPA/pale ale/etc. styles?

 

In the near future, we will have technology that will allow gauges installed on beer bottles that will accurately measure the hop freshness and oxidation of its contents at any given time. These gauges will be displayed as countdown timers, where once reaching zero, the labels will turn into BMC labels.

PtE's gauges will be set starting at the 23rd hour.

Science.

 

Um 3 months is usually when I start looking for a fresher ipa. But in vt most good local IPAs hit the store and are there for less than a day do it's not really a huge concern.

 

It really depends on the beer. Newer IPAs/APA that use New Zealand hops and Citra/etc tend to fall off much faster than others, although that still depends. The myth that Pliny falls off a cliff after 5 weeks is TRUE. There are enough IPAs/APAs on the market now that I won't buy anything past 4-5 weeks. If I can't find anything that fresh, I'll walk out empty handed (or buy another style). I'm not wasting money on old beer that I don't want to drink in the first place.

 

It depends. I've had 5 month old Sierra Nevada Pale Ale that was just as good.

 

2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks seem like incredibly short periods. Maybe 3 months? Unless I know a beer is famous for dropping off very quickly, I can't imagine worrying about 4 vs 6 weeks.

 

I grabbed a 12pk of SN pale ale a couple days ago with OP's exact thought in mind (to save a little bit money on my beer) plus i thought for $13.99 it was a good price. Got home to realize it was all bottled 3 months prior. I cracked one to see how they held up and it was terrible, just a mess of bitterness and off-flavors. I tried a few more looking to catch a slight buzz off the beer I had just bought and they were all difficult to put down. On a side note though, I wonder who is more so to blaim for these beers expiring so quickly... the brewers who make fast perishing beers or the distributors and retailers that have to maintain the cases of beer at ideal temperatures in order to preserve the true flavor..?