Regarding "Freshness"

So, every beer in your store is refrigerated? Did you place every one of those beers in refrigerators directly upon receipt from the Wholesale Distributor? Do you know with certitude those beers were continuously stored under refrigerated conditions at every one of the Wholesale Distributors that serve your store?

Cheers!

 

Moral of this thread = buy the freshest singles in a mix 6 by switching out with bottles in fresher 4- or 6-packs. Got it. Thanks for the advice Nero! Hahahaha

 

I have a question. Because of my in-laws location in NH we hit Alchemist, Fiddlehead, Foam, and in MA Trillium, Tree House, Nightshift a few times most years. We travel with coolers, get them in the fridge at the house and pack them the morning we fly out in Eline insulated boxes. By the time we drive home from the airport, they are still cold enough to drink and they go into the beer fridge. Am I an idiot for caring that much? I see our friends in Europe enjoying the same beers. Were they shipped refrigerated? Thanks for your honest replies!

 

No, you are not an idiot for caring that much.
I have no clue as to beer being shipped to Europe.
Prost.

 

Hopefully.

Pilsner Urquell ships their beer to the US in refrigerated containers so hopefully the importers of the beers you reference do the same?

Cheers!

 

As far as I know the beer is shipped refrigerated as it always arrives cold and is wheeled directly into our cold storage self-serve room (beer cave) that sits at about 52 degrees. As I mentioned before I actively taste these beers from time to time to ensure that they are good enough to even consider selling if they are past their dates and at a discount. I've had off-flavor training. And yes, all of our beer.

 

Oof. having just been fooled again, by Fremont (shakes fist at lack of dating legibility) to buy a sixer of October 2018 (!:?!) Lush IPA, gotta say... it makes a huge difference. Had to dump my first as it was just a nasty malt bomb at this point. *sigh*

 

Well, that would suggest the Wholesale Distributor owns refrigerated trucks. Unless you regularly visit/monitor each of the Wholesale Distributors you really have no way of knowing how these beers were continuously stored at each of these businesses.

How big is that room? How much beer can it hold? In Pennsylvania a typical beer retailer is what is called Beer Distributors and my two local Beer Distributors are HUGE warehouses with an outrageous amount of beer. Think about the beer section of a Total Wine & More store and them multiply by 2-3 times. There is absolutely no way they could store all of those beers at refrigerator temperatures. One of those Beer Distributors doesn't even air condition their area in the summertime.

Kudos to you for making this effort. Do you know of any other retailers that make this same effort?

Cheers!

 

Sound like this comes down to cost and balance. Are most consumers willing to pay for the costs associated with these actions.

 

I’m thinking Sierra Nevada here, their beers are always reasonable, and then some. Never ever had an off SN beer, usually fresh too.

 

No the moral is actually common sense but if you learned something then your a better person for paying attention...

 

For me the age that matters definitely depends on the style, but most likely my purveyor has me covered. Ultimately I'm willing to pay more for an uber fresh IPA/lager or an aged stout/Barleywine. I'm still a believer in the system

 

How the beers are continuously stored before they get to me wouldn't have any bearing on the dates stamped to the bottles that people are checking the beers are supposed to be shelf stable within a reasonable period of time on dry(non refrigerated) shelves like with Total Wine, by all accounts no beer could really be considered "fresh" unless it was coming right out of the bright tanks.
I don't know how the warehouses store the beer before it gets to me but they are trying to make money and storing the product they have improperly would impede on their ability to do that so i can assume that they are treating the beer in a reasonable way that would be industry standard or higher but I've never received any hot, off flavored or otherwise infected beer, to date, from any of the distribution companies I use, from what I've seen, usually that happens on retail shelves or at the source.
No, I don't know of any other companies who make the efforts I do specifically, but I'm sure any company, should they care about their customers and rotating their stock reasonably, would make similar efforts. One of the hardest things as buyer is making sure you have enough product you can sell in a amount of time that keeps your stock as fresh as possible and current without over-buying and ending up with most of your stock being OOC. Can't please everyone, but that doesn't mean I can afford to be sloppy and lazy about my efforts. Hell ,at least i'm up front and honest with my customers when I miss the mark.

 

Well, I can offer up my personal definition of "fresh' as a beer consumer and homebrewer of more than 20 years. I consider a beer to be fresh when is it less than x days of packaging. For the case of a hoppy beer style (e.g., IPAs) the value of x would be 90 days.

Operating costs are a big consideration for Wholesale Distributors. Storing all of the beers at their extremely large warehouses under refrigerated conditions would be a HUGE expense. They typically store the beers under air conditioned conditions. A Wholesale Distributor near me that has the Miller account (a big beer account) has to store the beer at 61 degrees F (or colder). Needless to say but 61 degrees F is quite a 'distance' from 40 degrees F (typical refrigerator conditions).

And that is a good thing.

And neither have I. I would suggest you are a rather unique beer retailer.

Dissecting the above sentence would lead me to believe that every beer retailer that I have purchased beer from (and that number would be large) does not "care about their customers".

If I lived near you in California I would purchase beer from you. The next statement may not be 100% accurate but it seems to me that you as a beer retailing business you are 'one in a million'.

Using your store is a 'model' for beer retailers in America would not be accurate.

Cheers!

 

I know other stores for the most part don't do what I'm trying to do, I used to work for a store called Bevmo and thats where I saw what really happens to a beer on dry shelves and how fast they turn when not kept cold. I know first hand they don't really care about their customers. Ive returned expired beer to Total Wine only to watch them put that same beer back on the shelf, that says to me that they simply just don't give a shit. Which is why my business partner and I decided to convert our cold storage room into a customer focused walk in cold box where they can find the beer as fresh as I can get it, constantly kept cold whether it be back stock or on a shelf. I have pictures but the forum wont let me share it. I don't think i'm doing anything special tbh but I care a great deal about our offerings and the customers we share them with. I feel that should just be par for the course.

 

I have been buying beer for decades and I have never purchased beer from a retailer that stored their entire inventory of beer under refrigerated conditions. Unless you can name some retailers that do what you do I will stand by my above statement of as a beer retailing business you are 'one in a million'.

And while is it great to give you as an individual/business kudos here it is not great to recognize that every other (or at a minimum the vast majority) beer retailer does "care about their customers" as you worded it in post #53.

Cheers!

 

I will stand by that retailers who don't take care of their inventory, charge their customers full price for out of code products, aren't making the effort to rotate their stock, properly store their products, put returned expired products back on the shelf for future purchase, don't make the effort to return expired product to distributors/breweries when able, don't care about their customers. I know not every store is set up the same, I know some stores can't keep that much product cold, but there are options and steps they can take to minimize losses to themselves and their customers. To not utilize those options and steps is to not care in my opinion. To me, to love beer as a seller of beer is to love your customers in that you love to offer them the beers you have at their best possible representation per your business model. I get excited when I get to tell someone about new and exciting beer, and it helps that it's cold, ready to go, and fresh. I feel proud to put that beer in their hand and send them off to have a wonderful experience with it.

 

Their priorities is to make money.

Cheers!

 

I dumped a 4 pack of Sumatra Mountain yesterday. I saw it in a beer store I don't usually visit and bought without checking the date; tasted nasty.
Turns out it was bottled on 12/15/2017.
No refund because, according to the cashier, there isn't an expiration date.
Lesson learned. Always check the date.