Taking personal responsibility for old beer purchases

Just the other day I saw someone grab a 4 pack of Lawson's Sip of Sunshine from the cooler without even looking for the date on it. I honestly couldnt believe it because if youre buying that beer you are clearly aware of craft beer and how dates on IPAs matter. I wonder how many of these people are out there who dont check the dates on craft beer they buy.

 

I like seeing beers in TW from breweries that went out of business years ago. (Brass Cannon beer in Norfolk TW for example)

 

If I was fortunate enough to find Sip of Sunshine I wouldn’t check the date either. I would assume it’s so popular the stock is moving quickly and fresh.

 

@DarkDragon999 beat me to what I intended to post after reading the OP.

We BAs are 'sophisticated' beer consumers and for the most part aware that we should check dates prior to purchasing beers. But the more 'casual' beer consumer (the majority of beer consumers?) are not spending many hours on BA and are less aware of the need to check dates prior to purchasing beers. When they purchase an old(er) product and find the beer to taste substandard (i.e., bad) they will blame the brewery and create the perception that Brewery X makes bad beer.

There are many stakeholders when it comes to the craft beer industry: Brewery -> Wholesale Distributor -> Retailer -> End Consumer. But as I discussed in the above paragraph it is the brewery who likely has the most 'exposure' to being blamed for poor product.

The challenge for the beer industry and the multi-tier distribution system is that each element can point fingers at others for the issue of old beer on the retailers' shelves (e.g., Victory stating "some retailers were unscrupulous").

The topic of too much old beer on retailers' shelves has been discussed many times over many years (decades) on BA and it seems to me that as an industry there is no will for the various segments to get together to solve this vexing issue. It seems to me that they prefer to just point fingers and blame the other guy(s).

I choose to conscientiously check dates. On a related note I recently purchased a stovepipe (not my preferred format) can of Cigar City Jai Alai which was canned on 9/17/24. I will be enjoying this beer later this evening - fresh is best!!

Cheers!

 

I just purchased an oktoberfest from dock street from a local store that im sure is from last year. So, its on me but I'm okay with it.
Big box store opened near by and is going to crush this guy so I prefer to support him and im guessing the beer is going to be ok.
So to your point again,I suck it up,put on my big boy pants and take the responsibility for the purchase.
Why I always tell my wife I never return fruit...its fruit,its a crap shoot if you peel it open and its good or not. Old beer and fruit is like Vegas, you have to accept its a gamble with sketchy odds

 

Just to clarify, there was no packaged on date for that beer?

Cheers!

 

I didn't look,I knew it was from last year

 

Well, a potential "second thought" could be that a certain brewery makes shitty beer and that consumer may never purchase products from them again. And to boot, they may encourage their family & friends to also not purchased beers from that brewery since they suck.

This is not a 'good game' for the brewing industry in the long(er) term. Never a good idea for a brewery and their business partners to sell substandard product.

Cheers!

 

It’s not just beer. I found some ‘speciality’ coffee with best by dates from 2023 on the shelves.

 

I rarely check dates. It's beer, it's gonna be fine. Not everything has to be an 'experience'.

 

It would be helpful to have good statistics here.

I have read numerous posts from BAs where they state they stopped shopping at store X since they sold too many old, stale beers. As I alluded to above we BAs are a minority of the beer consumer segment and maybe casual beer consumers will continue to shop at stores that sell old product? Or maybe after a few bad experiences some casual beer consumers will change their purchasing habits?

At the risk of being repetitious it seems to me that breweries are exposed the most since casual beer consumers they are likely to blame the brewery for bad product vs. the other elements of the supply chain.

FWIW I have personally have given up advocating for the beer industry (e.g., Brewers Association) to take the problem of too much old products on the shelves seriously and take measures to fix this broken system. Personally I have an easy solution here, I brew my own beer. My last five batches of beer I brewed: English Bitter Ale, Saison, Ekuanot IPA, Wet hopped Harvest Ale and Belgian Dubbel. The Harvest Ale and Dubbel are in primary fermenters.

Fresh is best!!

Cheers!

 

I tried buying some hummus at the supermarket this morning and the first three I picked up were either past their expiration date or cracked. Too many retailers are trash, and it’s unfortunate that it falls on consumers to do their jobs for them.

I actually applaud the dude pissed at Victory and wish his post was still up. I haven’t bought Hop Devil in ages — last time I did it was past the expiration date. It sounds like the retailer was probably at fault in the summary of the guy’s post provided here, but it doesn’t mean Victory couldn’t have given him a replacement. It’s a small price to pay to stay in a patron’s good graces. If the company’s argument is, “If we did that every time someone bought expired beer, we’d go broke,” that ought to tell you something.

 

I stand by my belief that the next big innovation in craft beer is on the distribution end of things. It's obvious that there is not great feedback from retailer to distributor to brewer and this results in lots of over production and then old shit sitting on shelves for unsuspecting customers to stumble into.

A distributor that can implement a system that gets meaningful feedback between retailers and brewers in a manner that allowed retailers to make appropriate orders and brewers to get their brew schedule in line with demand would be a premium service provider for the industry. Of course, the trick will be to offer that service without costing an arm and a leg