Old IPAs - What to do about this problem?

"For the life of me, I cannot find any of Firestone's IPAs within a week or two old, they are always two months old..."

I wish that I could find Firestone Walker beer that was two months old. Those beers are much older in my area.

Cheers!

 

To answer the OP's question - don't buy old IPAs. Stick to the fresh stuff. You won't turn into a pumpkin if you don't have Sculpin [which by the way is overpriced].

 

I recently was pumped to find a Union Jack that was 5 weeks old, and that's searching from Louisiana all the way up the east coast to Rhode Island.

 

You honestly expect breweries to abide by IPAs having a 35-day shelf life? Good lord. Do a side-by-side blind taste test sometime of these "old" IPAs.

 

Thank you.....

 

2 months on either one isn't the worst thing that can happen to you within the realm of beer, by far. With them now being offered in cans, that drop off will not be as bad either. But to address your concern in general, I'd have to believe that there's got to be some brewery near you that makes a comparably good IPA that you can growler up on quite routinely. Maybe just take a break from sifting through old beers and stick closer to home if age beyond a week is a major concern.

 

I have noticed that my local beer store too always has old IPA's on the shelf, such as the Firestone Walker IPA's and even Ithaca Flower Power is always old in my local beer store, which is crazy because we're in the same state. If an IPA is more than three months old I'll skip it, but three months and under is fair game in my opinion. The drop off during that time frame is usually not that much noticeable. With that being said, my local beer store always seems to have fresh grapefruit sculpin. By fresh I usually mean about a month old or younger. The regular sculpin, however, is always around the 2-3 month mark.

 

At least 3 stores I visited looking for decently fresh Double Jack and all had the same, march 2015. Haven't seen anything fresher. I'm not the best with brewing cycles, so maybe they haven't made any since.

A month or two would be OK for me. But 4+ months is too long for me.

 

I was at a local bottle shop the other week and noticed they had Double Trouble on the shelf... that was bottled last summer. This seems to be far more egregious than the couple of months people are mentioning here. It's a shame because I wanted to get it, but once I saw the date I passed. Makes me think twice about shopping there.

 

Old IPA's are not a problem for us the consumer, it's a problem for the brewer (and to some extent the distributor). We can just opt to not buy any beer we deem past it's freshness point, but the Brewer has to figure out how to produce enough beer for distribution to it's markets while not having it sit too long where it ends up being pulled off the shelves. I think all the new breweries popping up are hurting the bigger craft breweries as we know we can always get fresh beer any time we want it. I pass on a lot of 2 month old beers that I would haven't thought twice on buying a few years ago.

 

If you have a hankering for fresh Sculpin, maybe make the trip to the brewery (seeing as you're from CA). Support your small breweries that make sure they're selling fresh beer. Otherwise, just keep checking bottling dates and buy fresh stuff.

 

My solution has been to mostly just drink IPAs on tap. But I'm always on the lookout for a relatively fresh, refrigerated bottle or can as well.

 

I so envy folks that can buy at their local brewers for this exact reason. Walking into the Tasty Weasel at Oskar Blues and leaving with cold cans was like a dream, especially for an Oklahoman.

Most stores don't care enough, but I go to a couple of stores in Kansas that display best by dates on the shelves for beers that are relatively short lived. When it gets down to the wire, the price goes down. They also display dates for beers that have been aged by the store which is really nice - they tend to go up a bit in price. Pretty cool to see five years of Big Foot on the shelf!

 

Don't buy them.

And 2 month old IPA is not a problem. Sure it's nice to get beer as fresh as possible, but this freshness thing is getting out of control.

 

Who's fault is it that an IPA on the shelf is 3 months old? Either someone is taking a while to deliver it to the store, or not enough people are buying it when it is "fresh".

 

Perhaps you don't like Sculpin as much as you thought.

 

Same freaking problem with Stones 2.0 Ruination , bought it 2 weeks after the enjoy by date of 7/15/2015. There was quite a difference , no fruity flavor at all, went right to the alcohol taste and kinda dank aftertaste. Got ripped 12 bucks.

 

Hmmm, I must have missed something. When and how did they show that?

 

Step 1: Don't purchase IPAs that are older than you prefer them to be
Step 2: Purchase IPAs that are as fresh as you prefer them to be instead
Step 3: Convince other people that shop at the stores you generally shop at not to purchase IPAs that are older than you prefer them to be*
Step 4: Convince other people that shop at the stores you generally shop at to purchase IPAs that are as fresh as you prefer them to be instead*
Step 5: Watch IPAs that you don't prefer get replaced by IPAs that you do prefer at the stores you generally shop at*



*Probably not going to happen