So, go to my local store, they have been out of Green Flash West Coast IPA for awhile. Good news, it is very evident they have gotten a new shipment. Good news, GF now bottles dates. Bad news, I check the date, bottled on 6/26/2012!! So, beer gets to the store for purchase, using Stone standard of 3 months, we are less than 3 weeks away from old beer ! This is ridiculous. Hats off the Green Flash for bottle dating, but what good is it if beer is past prime before I even get a chance to drink it? Are there are any other industries that deliver old or close to old products? All of this old beer on the shelves, how does an industry survive when they are clearly producing more product than the customers are buying?
Hmmm I just picked up some blind pig in sf and the bottle date is 9/05/2012. But I have had problems with older dates on ballast stuff coming up here.
Not sure what the point of this thread is but thats a bummer, I hate that distributers hold onto beer to sell other stuff. At the same time it makes sense from a business prespective, hard to come up with the perfect solution (other than wasting a lot of beer that is quite enjoyable but not super fresh)
You are missing a critical piece of information. Depending on the bottling line in use at Green Flash, the shelf life might be 90 days and it might be 150-180 days. So maybe you have 3 weeks and maybe you have 3 mos and 3 weeks. As for other industries, the comparable ones have to do with food, which is typically regulated by the state, so they tend to be better about delivery and shelf life. For example the bakers don't have to use a middle man and send their fresh bread out on a delivery truck and the driver restocks the shelves and pulls out of date product.
I don't understand this, how does the bottling line affect freshness? I think common belief is around 3 months. Bottle says it was bottled on June 26th.
Basically there are two types of bottling lines. Those that do a single pre-evacuation of oxygen (by squirting a stream of CO2 into the bottle to force out oxygen) before bottling. And those that do a dual pre-evacuation (i.e., squirt CO2 into the bottle twice before filling). The latter bottling line is more modern and more expensive but extends the shelf life by 2-3 months since less oxygen is trapped in the bottle when it is capped. So two bottles with the same bottled on date can have two different shelf lives.
IIRC Victory's bottle dates are reflective of the same process. Edit: Correct me if I'm missing something, but isn't the second squirt of CO2 on top of the filled bottle?, i.e a layer between the fluid level and the cap?
Victory and Soudts both have double pre-evacuation set ups. You are not missing much. Mostly right, just as I was mostly right in my descriptio. This link will give you much more detail than I can fill in here. http://www.meheen-mfg.com/bottlingforthefuture.html
6/26!! Oh The Horror! What is ridiculous is that you are so entrapped by the notion that a beer will somehow turn to treacle if it passes an arbitrary date set pretty much only because we consumers have demanded it. Let me get this straight. You see a beer on a shelf that you have been looking for awhile and it is still 3 weeks north of its 3-month-old date. And that's too fucking old for you already?? Chrissake man, it's less than 3 months old! Do you realize how fucking spoiled you are being?? Buy it, drink it, and be happy you can get it. If it really stretches your notion of freshness, then consider it an experiment in evaluating aged fermentations. With your next purchase of the same beer, dated a healthy 5 weeks before its 3-month-old date, compare, contrast, mull it over and take copious notes. You'll be stronger for it. What good is it? It's beer. Good beer! "less than 3 weeks away from old beer"--what the hell does this mean? And what the fuck is "Stone standard"? I'm sorry but the pouty bottom lip implied in this OP has really pissed me off. Come to WV, toff. You'll learn to change your own Pampers.
You'd be surprised how often distributors send out beer that is extremely close to best buy dates. And I am not talking just IPA's.
Wow, you really need to relax a bit. Thanks for the personal attack. If there are more people like you in WV, glad I have never been there and hopefully I will never be I am not talking about a beer that is 1 or 2 weeks old. There is a noticeable difference in the quality of hoppy IPAs as they get older. Before GF started bottle dating, I would take my chances and got burned many times before. Now even with bottle dating the best they can do is 3 weeks before beer is past 3 months? If 3 months standard is good enough for Stone who is one of the best all around breweries out there, that is good enough for me. You cam also be rest assured that soon the rest of those WCIPA sixes will sit at the store and soon be past their prime and undrinkable. It amazes me that BAs like you except a whole industry thay has substandard products on the shelf. And even worse people like you attack people who point it out. A lot of people made noise about lack of bottle on dates with some breweries. They weren't "just happy to to get it". They posted on here, wrote emails to brewery. Well surprise surprise, it worked, breweries like Green Flash and Ballast Point are bottle dating. The next step is for the breweries to brew the right amount of beer so it turns over quicker and for the distributors to get it out of the warehouses and into the stores.
Man, you are the example gramps had in mind when he gave his advice of when to open mouth and why it might be better not to, I am sure there are those on here who know what I mean. West Coast style IPA's are certainly drinkable after a few months. And many styles are drinkable after even that long, there are many that actually improve. But the only thing OP was trying to imply was that in the specific case of IPA's, freshness is so desirable, and fresh alternatives are so easy to obtain, that it makes no sense for a "new" batch of GF WCIPA to be already 2 1/2 months old when delivered to store. Basically the distributor is dooming it. Relax, don't worry, have a brew. You'll live longer and be happier for sure. PS Stone standard refers to Stone Brewing Company, it is a California brewery that makes some pretty good beers, and has a quality control program that ought to be adopted universally. Take a look around in your dying WV town, one of the local stores might carry Stone beers, they are quite good, try one and see.
I've seen distributors in Arizona deliver beer to Safeway and other places that is ALREADY EXPIRED. F-you, customer.
I've seen it too, ie I don't buy beers from Lagunitas as they all come in near or past their best by dates.
I think this mitigates a bit. But I have seen old local beers on the shelves also. I think the real problem here is the breweries are producing more beer than the consumers can drink. Of course the limited and popular beers go fast, but the run of the mill beers sit on the shelf gathering dust. Too many choices, too many beers on the shelves, not enough customers, the beer sits and gets old. All of these stores have huge selections which would be good if there were enough customers to buy all that beer. But I would like to see less selection with high turnover to increase the chances of not getting old beer.
Great thread! Just wanted to add in my two cents here about BBD(best by dates), their importance, and a lack of good quality in the overall marketplace. jmw, consumers haven't demanded BBD, suppliers(brewery) have. Its not consumers who tell a brewery what beer is supposed to taste like, but suppliers telling us. The BBD is part of that. Beer is a living organism, but it breaks down(oxidizes) over time. There is nothing we can do about that, though colder temperature slows it down. As it "oxidizes" it changes the visual, flavor, aroma and mouthfeel. Some of that could be good. Think about how some people age wine for years. But most beer is supposed to be consumed as quickly as possible. When a brewery wants to determine a BBD, they take a bottled/canned/kegged batch, leave one sample cold and another warm then taste it at week one to establish a TTB(true to brand) description. Both beers are consumed at regular intervals over maybe 6 months. When a beer is no longer TTB, meaning color, flavor, aroma and mouthfeel are no longer what they were at the beginning, THAT is the BBD. Remember how this was done at the brewery? Under a set of cerrtain standards? Well now add in transportaion from the brewery to the distributor, management of product there, and transportaion to an account like a bar or a store and then management of the product there before you even get to purchase it. How do those actions effect the beer's shelf life(time before TTB becomes not TTB)? But a BBD isn't some absolute jmw, remember the beer is always oxiding(breaking down, getting older) so if GF's BBD is, say 20 weeks from the time it was brewed, that beer may taste bad at 15 weeks, or 10 weeks, all depending on how it was handled before it came to you the consumer. Believe it or not New Belgium, has one of the best post prewery quality programs. Sierra, Boulevard, New Glarus, MillerCoors and Bud all do too. Why don't other breweries as well? A lot has to do with lack of control. Green Flash wants to make more money, so they can invest in their infrastructure, pay their employees higher wages, etc. But their current market is overwhelmed by their beer, so they distribute out farther and farther, maybe with distributors who care less and less about GF's TTB and to accounts who don't know about any of this. jrnyc, I bet this has happened to you. If you live in NYC, imagine all those variables it took to get from California to New York and how everything could go wrong. I think there are a few good lessons here. 1) Drink the freshest beer possible. New Belgium, for instance as a BBD and a brew date of their label. If a brewery doesn't have a field quality program, maybe its not a good idea to drink a beer 50, 500 or 5000 miles from the actual brewery. 2) Ask questions of wholesalers, suppliers, and retailers. Make the three tiered system work for you. 3) Educate yourself. Beer can be whatever you want it to be, but you're paying for it. Don't be afraid to ask simple questions.
Doesn't necessarily work. Plus the top local brewery here refuses to let us know how to decipher their codes on their bottled beer. yes, they put codes on them but refuse to tell us what they are. So, none of the "costs too much" arguments work here. They just want to be able to have their stale beer to continue to sell to consumers.
Blame the distributor or beer store if you feel the beer is to old. Pretty sure almost every brewery the size of GF has this problem. Once the beer is put on the truck the brewery has NO control over where it goes or how long it will sit in a distribution center or even on the shelves. The 3 month rule is a good start but many beer,hoppy or not,are ok on day 91. Think many craft beer drinkers are getting a little anal about this but spend your money how you see fit,or better yet,drink local.
