Out of Code Beer and Etiquette

These people are not leading the industry; they are following. ;-)

 

Without followers, the whole thing is just a pyramid scheme

 

Mostly true but not entirely true. Two examples:

· Stone Enjoy By details a code length of 35 days by prominently displaying a best by date as part of the beer label; (e.g., Enjoy By 02.14.16)

· Sam Adams Rebel Raw: “Rebel Raw is a limited release with a 35 day shelf life.” - See more at: http://blog.samueladams.com/tag/rebel-raw/#sthash.LsTzFzop.dpuf

It will be interesting if other breweries create and distribute hoppy beers with similarly short best by timeframes.

Cheers!

 

Is Bernie now in the craft beer business!?!

Cheers!

 

It's also quite doable if you buy local.

 

Yup, a few weeks ago I bought a case of Troegs Nugget Nectar that was canned on 1/20/16. Last year I bought a case of Victory DirtWolf that was bottled 1 week before my purchase date.

Cheers!

 

There are many good replies here, and I think the OP's questions have mostly been answered. I'll add my 2 cents though.

A beer is not necessarily out of code if it is older than 3 months. Strictly speaking, a beer is only out of code if it is older than the freshness period designated by the brewery. These can be vastly different. One brewery might put a 90 day code on their IPA, while another might be comfortable with how theirs tastes over a 6 month period. Some beers/beer styles are just more hearty by nature, some breweries have efficient bottling/canning lines that can keep beer tasting fresher longer. There is no hard and fast rule.

The three month period that everyone talks about is more of an unofficial guideline. Many people feel that freshness in the more delicate beer styles tends to tail off after three months. What it comes down to is personal preference. In my experience, this can even vary from beer to beer. I've had a canned Pilsner from a reputable brewery that tasted great four months out (still within the brewery's freshness period). There are also IPAs that, in my opinion, fall off outside of two months and are still within the freshness period.

My advice is this: if you see a clear best by date and the beer is on the wrong side of it, don't buy it. Also feel free to point it out if you feel so inclined. If you see a bottled on date, there is no real way of knowing if the beer is out of code or not without knowing the brewery designated freshness period. This is where you should proceed with caution. If you've never had the beer before and it is a more delicate style, then I would try to buy it within three months of bottling. There is no reason to go pointing it out to employees or making a stink about it if it is older than three months though. Not unless you know the brewery designated freshness period and the beer exceeds it. That said, if you see a beer that is far out of season or a beer that is of a more delicate style that is 6mo+ in age, you can be reasonably assured it is out of code.

Maintaining beer freshness is everyone's responsibility across the three-their system. However, the onus of the burden often falls to distributors and retailers. A good retailer will keep an eye on their stock and try their best to rotate product and maintain freshness. A good distributor rep will likewise watch the product they sell in to a store and work with the retailer to ensure that it turns over and freshness is maintained. Good communication and a good working relationship between the distributor rep and the retailer are key. However, this is not a perfect world and beer will inevitably go out of code sometimes. Who should eat the cost? That's really situationally dependant, but the majority of the time the distributor will pick up out of code product and credit the retailer somehow. The out of code product is disposed of and there is often a bill-back to the brewery and the cost is shared.

 

This is a matter of personal preference then.

 

Do you work in the beer industry? Do you have data that for the craft beer industry the majority of instances of beer being "out of code" is rectified by the wholesale distributor and the retailer is compensated?

I have no data to substantiate this but my guess is that what happens for the majority of out of code beer is that an unsuspecting (knowledgeable) customer buys the old beer (or the retailer swallows the cost).

A wise and conscientious retailer will properly monitor their stock and as the beer approaches its out of code date will discount the beer to ensure that it is purchased prior to going out of code.

Cheers!

 

Maybe. But as someone who prides himself on sharing the joys of great craft beer I think you're doing people a disservice by not drinking great hoppy beers withing a few weeks of packaging.

 

Enjoy By. Let's not forget about that.

And you're right, don't listen to me. I'll continue to buy and drink super from IPAs and be a stickler about wanting fresh beers in my trades and the rest of you can drink malt bombs that have been sitting on shelves or in someones fridge for too long.

 

At least with all the distributors my brewery has worked with, we are always asked to provide sale sheets on our beers. THe sheets get sent to the retailers when they order our beer. The info they get on the sheet includes our recommended shelf life, storage conditions, IBU's, SRM, ABV, and a description of the beer. If a retailer doesn't know that info, it is because they didn't read the sheet.

 

Haha. I do work in the beer industry, and on the distribution side. I don't think the data you speak of exists, and I don't think it'll ever be possible to collect it. I can only speak to how things are (ideally) handled in my neck of the woods. Anecdotal to be sure. I don't know of many retailers that will knowingly eat the cost of their breakage/expired beer though. If they know it's there and affecting their profits, 9 times out of 10 they will push to have it picked up.

"A wise and conscientious retailer will properly monitor their stock and as the beer approaches its out of code date will discount the beer to ensure that it is purchased prior to going out of code."

We are in agreement here. And a wise and conscientious distributor rep will help the retailer with this. My commentary was framed more around this type of healthy working relationship. Hence I use the terms "good retailer" and "good distributor rep" and "good working relationship." Of course there are less desirable scenarios.

 

Will those distributors remove old product and compensate the retailers for that old beer?

Cheers!

 

You're speaking of a very specific business model and applying a blanket statement based on that to the rest of the beer industry. There's a basic truth to what you write. Hop-forward beers are often better the fresher they are consumed. But that doesn't mean you have be a **** about it. There are many IPAs that taste fantastic months after bottling. It's really dependant on the beer and how it's packaged and handled. Saying all hop-forward beer should be consumed within 35 days of bottling is frankly laughable. It's not a very realistic thing to achieve unless you're a very small brewery that sells their beer out at the door.

You can keep trading for the freshest beer possible, but at the end of the day your beer is probably arriving at your door via FedEx or UPS. It's getting jostled around in a hand-packed box and exposed to all kinds of fluctuating temperatures and environments. This is just as influential on the freshness of your beer as time is. Food for thought.

 

Without getting too much into the politics of doing so, no they will not. If they have to do so, then we pay the distributor back. Typically if that happens, it is because the distributor sent the beer to an account that really should be selling our beer. It is frustrating to see us not able to keep beer in stock at our good accounts and then find out that another account has year old beer.

 

Naw, he went big on Ponzi (before heading up the river).

 

Jack -

One other thing to note, which I thought you might find interesting. Was talking with a couple of wholesalers this morning, and they remarked how they were "sitting on a ton of product" from breweries that recently sold out, as were some of the retailers in their area.

One thing some folks on BA might appreciate - but breweries don't count "sales" as when the customer buys their beer. Rather, sales (revenue) is counted when a brewery ships the beer to the wholesaler. 100% of the sale is accounted for at that point.

But we all know that is not true and complete - after all, the wholesaler has to sell the beer to the bottle shop/grocer/bar/restaurant, and that entity also must successfully sell the beer to the consumer/end user. Only then is the sale truly "complete."

Seems like there was a lot of incentives to push as much beer out to the wholesalers as possible shortly before the sale, thus making the financials of the company look better than they actually are. The entire downstream supply chain is affected by this, as there is an accumulation of stale and old product clogging up the shelves.

This is yet another reason why (IMHO) to err on having not enough inventory vs. having too much. Of course, as already note, that is often easier said then done!

cheers

 

Hadn't thought about this before. Now a couple of things I've heard/seen might be making a bit more sense.

 

Shane, is the Brewery to Wholesale Distributor sales relationship a 'push' or a 'pull'? In other words do Wholesales Distributors place an order with the brewery (a 'pull") where they request x pallets of brand A and y pallets of brand B and... Or do you as a brewery just ship product to a Wholesale Distributor (a 'push') and they are contractually obligated to receive what you send them?

It would seem to me that the dynamic of 'push' vs. 'pull' could greatly influence the balance of how much old beer is out in the marketplace (both the Wholesale Distributors warehouse and the retail stores).

Cheers!