What's your work around for Best By Dates when buying IPAs?

If it's a month or more before the best buy date I'll buy the beer.

 

Some breweries have the respective shelf life on their site. I’ve also emailed to find out shelf life with success usually.

But these days I pretty much go the @dennisthreeninefiveone method.

 

My work around is to never buy IPAs for which I can't easily decipher the bottling date.

 

I go with bottled 3 months earlier, whether I am right or not. Depends on the IPA if I buy it or pass if in the same month as best by.

 

A good discussion and I've posted about this before: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/brewed-by-date-vs-best-by-date.620284/.

I think that all brewers should be required to have a brewed-on, canned-on, bottled-on date. Agree that best-buy date is quite meaningless, especially when it comes to IPAs. Difficult to determine, but if I can't find a bottling date, I go to the website to find out the release date. If I do suspect the beer is old, I will judge it accordingly. Often times I see IPAs over 6 months old on the shelf and shake my head.

 

I usually know the brewer's shelf life period the "Best by" date is based on. If I don't, I don't buy it until I do.

Only IPAs? I want all my beer to be fresh when I purchase it (yeah, even those I intent to cellar).

Why do you want to know the "brewed-on" date? What good does that do you? You'd have to know the time it takes for fermentation, aging, etc. Oh, wait.

I see I asked you that before (twice) in that thread... but no reply.

How is it "meaningless" if one knows the shelf life period the brewery uses for its "Best by" date?

 

What we need is a release date, since that would be when the brewery thinks ready to drink,

 

I love how people on BA argue that old beer should be pulled from store shelves just like milk past its best by date... while people here also argue that "best by" dates are worthless on beer, claiming: "Just give me the canned on date so I can decide if it's still good or not."

 

If it's a brewery that I know and trust, I'll buy their beer even if it's undated.
If it's a brewery that I haven't tried yet, I won't buy their undated product. *
If I have choices, I look for a dated product from a brewery that I know and trust.

* Unless, of course, it has a really cool-looking label. Sometimes that runs me off the rails. Then I buy a single.

 

Easy, I buy one can. If it is good I go back and buy more. Oh, your retailer won't sell singles? Sucks to be you. :-)

 

not where I buy. Besides, would you rather pay $0.50 extra for a can or buy a whole 4pk/6pk of something that turns out to be old?

 

Every brewery will have differing best by durations but I think that @dennisthreeninefiveone has a good strategy of purchasing the beers a month+ before the best by date. And if the beers are stored cold for a considerable period of time at the retailer this provides additional assurance of the IPA being 'fresh'.

Cheers!

 

Find all the IPAs that have "packaged on" dates, disregard the ones that don't. Pick out the ones I most want to drink from the ones with "packaged on" dates. Buy the freshest one(s) of those. Easy.

 

This ^

 

Maybe that keeps you sufficiently satisfied often enough when the choices include risks related to cost of buying entire 4pk/6pks, or if your intent is to demonstrate againat those brewers who don't date cans, but I have had some great beers in undated cans. You are missing some good beers that outperform some dated "fresh" beers.

 

Well, I may miss out on some beers, I guess that's true. Not sure why that doesn't bother me. Perhaps it should ?

OTOH buying IPA's as fresh as possible is the way most likely to get to drink them at their "sweet spot" of age, which isn't always immediately upon packaging. Sometimes it's days, or a week or two, after packaging. It's rarely a month or two, but we each have our own "sweet spot" so obviously YMMV.

 

I buy a lot of stuff with no “best by”, “packaged on” etc. Like another poster said, sometimes I’ll watch social media. If a brewery I like says this set of cans is going out for distro this week and I see them at my beer store a week or two later, I’ll pick them up. My choices would dwindle significantly if all I bought was beer that was marked with a date of some sort. I’ve taken a lot of risks buying stuff that I had no idea on. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. I suppose at that point, I’m relying on the store and the distributor to rotate which I know isn’t always a guarantee either. Overall, if I see something that looks interesting I will probably pick it up regardless. Cheers.

 

American style IPAs lose a lot of their edge quickly. They can be amazing when very fresh and disappointing not long after.

I'm with the few other posters who avoid IPAs with "best by" dates. Those brewers are missing my purchases unless I know my dealer just got them from the brewer.