Do you check for freshness?

100% of the time. Everyone should demand it if they are willing to pay a premium price. I’ve let breweries know and they don’t seem to really care or blame the distributor.

 

And you might think the brewery would have a concern here. A consumer buys their beer and because it is old it tastes like crap and the consumed says to themselves "I will never buy beer from Brewery X since they suck".

But Brewery X just continues to not date their beers (and wonders why continuing sales are not good?).

Cheers!

 

Pretty much always.

 

Nothing worse than walking away empty handed after first gasping at all the IPAs available in front of you. It's sad. So many people are going to try those older beers 'once' only to be be turned off and never try them again. I always check the dates.

 

My son is very vocal about freshness. This after ive drank truckloads over the years without giving it a 2nd thought. Too much of a pita to try and find dates when I'm shopping and too blind to read them. I may check after the fact when tastes like crap if i can find my magnifying glass. Gee maybe should have checked the date?

 

I drink almost exclusively stouts and IPAs. I always check the IPSAs. Seldom the stouts, unless I am at an unfamiliar retailer with dust on the shelves. If I age stuff it will be under my controlled conditions, not because they sat on some shelf at room temp for a year.

 

You may not realize that there actually is a real "Brewery X" in SoCal and they do date their beer, many of which are excellent. You may have to change your future reference to a hypothetical brewery by calling it "Brewery XYZ"

 

Yup, did not know.

But I am pretty sure you understood me here.

Cheers!

 

Most of my beer buying these days comes direct from the source (going straight to the taproom or having it delivered to me) or from one store in particular that I trust has fresh beer as they have very limited, refrigerated-only space so they have to clear things out to make room for new product, which is how beer is supposed to be run. I don't check any more from either of those but for somewhere new, I check 90% of the time, especially if it's a style that should be enjoyed as fresh as possible.

I've given similar responses in other threads pertaining to this subject but here we go...

Could be one or a combination of things happening here: distributor for those particular beers is negligent/irresponsible in ensuring OOCs don't get sent out, fresher beer is being prioritized for stores that have more turnover overall or for those particular beers, or (and this is the least likely since I'm purely speculating; I'm not sure how buying works in grocery chains) they're cut a discount for less fresh product but charge MSRP.

I'll give an example: Golden Road has a suggested shelf-life on many of their beers for about four months. I can't count the number of times I've been sent Golden Road beer a month prior to expiration, which with my luck, always seems to coincide with me having to bulk out for a display.

I've had beer sent to my store that was already expired or was at the very end of its shelf-life. So the store is maybe not at fault here. I've wrongly assumed in the situations where it's happened to me that the supplier/distributor did their due diligence and made sure what they were sending me was appropriate to sell.

 

This. When i venture to western VA I stop at Greenwood Grocer in Crozet. During COVID they had a similar arrangement. Refused to buy beer there until they opened back up normally. Thankfully they did.

 

Well, except how would the breweries know that is why their sales or growth rate are down? Most don't have the money to do any sort of sophisticated market research. They might just decide: "More cartoon labels! New "limited" beers! Goofier names! More flavors! Even more haze!"

 

Yes and no. For myself, I’m a little more lax. I’ll check and buy things that are reasonably fresh. I generally buy directly from breweries though and, because I follow them on IG, I generally have a sense of when a beer was canned/bottled without checking the can/bottle itself.

For BIFs and trades, I’m far more vigilant.

 

I always check. This time of year a lot less beer is being sold (especially lagers/pilsners) and what's left is often old. I'm looking for things to improve in a month or so. I try to avoid dateless cans but sometimes I'm curious... and then don't know if I'm getting old stuff and it's different from the "ideal" taste...

 

Well good. Hopefully the three new TW stores within my distribution area get all the old beer and my shop gets the fresh stuff.

 

Unfortunately, They still might’ve just gotten it in though.

 

Yes of course. I check the dates on all food I buy and beer is no different. Probably more important than a bag of chips or can of green beans.

Sometimes I long for the days when I could just buy a case of beer every so often without worrying about it so much. It took 15 seconds. Heck, I could just tell my wife to do it.

Ok I don't really long for those days, but it was sure easier.

 

If the Wholesale Distributors dump their old beer at the other three TW stores first before hitting your TW store: