Weihenstephaner Original Freshness Issues

The stuff that is under 12 weeks is phenomenal. Anything much past that -- especially if not kept cold -- is a shadow of the fresh stuff.

 

Is the bottling date on the bottle or on the pack/case?

 

Same goes for their Hefe Weissbier. Had some at about 8 months age, and it's a goner.

 

I have no personal experience with older bottled beers from this brewery, but it seems like the optimum shelf life would depend not only on storage conditions but the beer style as well.

 

The brewers of these and similar brands bring a remarkable level of German efficiency toward keeping the final product stable. I suppose they filter and pasteurize the daylights out of them but whatever they do it works, up to a point. Properly kept, yeah, they can last 6-8 months, but what happens before we buy them is beyond our control.

For my own use I don't want to step too far past the 3-4 month line because I can't trust how they've been kept, whether baked in an unairconditioned distributor's warehouse or sitting interminably under a store's fluorescent lights.

 

Interesting. I've never had the opportunity to sample fresh batches against older versions as the distribution system in Philadelphia is pretty good and everything has basically the same date. ...maybe I could go search it out? ...find an old case versus a new case, but that seems silly. I'll just check for freshness from now on and maybe I can find the magic of a newly bottled Weihenstephaner.

 

This is why best by and freshness by date suck!

 

I love German beer.

I am finding it harder and harder to find anything but mostly seasonals that are consistently fresh. Seasonals like fest beers arrive on time. I am relying on local recreations which are solid and work for me.

And Urquell gets here with pretty decent dating.

 

I have had similar experiences but frankly the number of times I have found this beer this fresh is infrequent.

Yup! European imports will indicate that their beers are 'good' for one year and even longer (Jever lists 15 months) but this is crap. Pale Lagers are best enjoyed fresh (e.g., less than 110 days from bottling) regardless of the alleged claims of pasteurization.

Cheers!

 

Maybe this is why Weihenstephaner uses such easy to decipher date code.

 

Would you please tell me how to decipher it? I only buy it if I know they just put it out.

 

From and earlier thread on the topic:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/weihenstephaner-date-code-question.445327/

The last number is the last number of the year. The middle two numbers are for the week of the year. The first is the last number in the day.

For 2056 it would be:

6=2016
05= 5th week of the year (ie first week of February)
2 = 2nd

Feb. 2, 2016

Thanks @scottakelly

 

Thanks. I will keep this on a card in my wallet. =)

 

Storage condition is the name of the game for old beer. I've had perfectly fine Weihenstephaner that was around a 6 months and I really didn't notice much of a difference between it and the usual 2-4 month old that I get.

Anyhow, beer that is nearly a year old should probably be pulled by either your local distributor or your store. Beer does degrade and the customer shouldn't have to deal with beer that has been impacted greatly by age.

 

I can't tell you how many times I've had that debate with retailers -- the great majority refuse to believe it. I even had one tell me that the best by date on bottles was for the distributors, not the consumer -- whatever point that was supposed to make.

 

That's one of the more ridiculous things I've ever heard.

If a beer manager at a store told me something like Weihenstephan Original was still good after a year, he should immediately quit and look for another job.

Because he's either being disingenuous, or knows nothing about beer.

 

It was a pretty common belief within the industry by many brewers for decades - that was often the whole point of the codes that required complicated formulas to read.

Check out the how to read the Falstaff code of the period of the 1960-80s which was a series of nine dots pre-printed on the labels and notches made at bottling - at the bottom of my Date Code page, for one example.

The notch at the dot was the first digit (1-9) the notch in-between the dots represented the second digit - together they were the week of the year the beer was packaged.

But chances are both the distributor (who should remove and replace/refund out-of-code beer) and the brewery* tell him that. Why shouldn't he both believe it and repeat it?

* Not sure about Weihenstephaner (I so seldom find any even close to my personal cut-off date I long ago stopped checking them) but it is not uncommon for many German and other Euro brands to list both the "packaged on" and "best by" dates and they are typically exactly 1 year apart.

Seems unlikely that "German efficiency" within the global brewing industry would exist to a point where they know how to preserve beer freshness while other countries' brewers don't. Many US brewers over the years have trained at German breweries and German brewing schools, and international brewing companies like ABInBev, Heineken and Carlsberg all own and operate formerly German-owned breweries.

Also, "filtering and pasteurizing the daylights out of" beer is not generally considered good practice for beer. While it might help with preservative, it would destroy much of the flavor the brewer is trying to preserve in the first place.

 

Original Premium fresh is one of the best I agree. That code deciphering is quite challenging though. So here in January 2018...I'll be looking for 40 or higher in the middle numbers and a 7. That should give me October and more current (52 weeks in a year so 12 less equals 3 months back...October). I doubt I'll find any though.

 

Worse, he's the owner. I've tried to talk to him about beer, but I think he has it in his store because it sells.

Lately, it seems he's both -- especially with that comment. After I heard that one I made the conscious decision to not patronize the place anymore.