But Backwoods Bastard isn't a hoppy beer. You can have concerns if you want, but I don't have any age worries for most dark beers (a black IPA is one style that I would look for freshness).
I have never seen dates being removed on beer but I did observe meat being repackaged with new dates once. If I cannot find a date I do not buy it. You cannot assume beer stores are not going to keep fresh inventory. As mentioned in a previous post it appears to me that they must get big discounts from distributors to move old beer. Nothing is more dissapointung than cracking open an old IPA and being able to tell what happened immediately.
I've seen a store trying to pass off the previous year's Oktoberfest as the current's. In fact, I was the sucker who fell for it. I saw the Oktoberfests and just assumed, given that it was September, that they had just landed. Last time I make that mistake. And last time I shop at that store.
Did you go back and point out their selling of old stock? Have to wonder if they knew or were duped by their distro.
You can put your tin foil down. Smudges, and hard to read dot matrix printing is directly attributable to the printer being out of alignment to the track the cans are on. Take it from firsthand knowledge of packaging, and the how and when it actually occurs. No employee at a liquor store is actually going to take the time, or have the correct strength of isopropyl alcohol to flip them all to clean them off.
I've seen places either rub out the packaging dates or they place stickers over it. Pretty grimy stuff.
I'm ok as long is it's kept cold and under a 9 months. I will buy off the Bi-mart shelf thats warm within 3 months but that's a packaging date.
Amen to that! The few times it's happened, I always want to kick myself for not being more observant.
Yeah. I went back to the store and spoke with the dude at the register. In between my buying it and my return (which was probably two days) they actually did put out the newest Oktoberfests. I told him the pack they sold me was a year old and asked if I could swap it out with one of the fresh ones. He said no. I wasn't going to lay into the dude, as he seemed like he was just some kid who had a job working the register. I doubt he relayed the story to his boss. Whatever. Either way, I won't go back.
Agreed. No point in beating the kid up over it, but I would perhaps ask why they wouldn't make the exchange. Does he feel there's nothing wrong selling old, stale beer to customers? Part of the reason I asked, is that many years ago I worked in a wine store, and this sort of thing would occasionally happen with wine. On occasion, we would sometimes carry several vintages of a particular wine, and on occasion a customer might ask to return a bottle or case for a different vintage. Assuming the price was the same, we would happily make the exchange. Assuming you had the receipt for your purchase, I'm puzzled as to why the store wouldn't make the exchange. It really makes it sound like the store was knowingly engaging in duplicitous behavior, (which I guess they were), instead of just making an inadvertent mistake.
I always like to refer to the retailer/owner who said to me, "It's not like milk! It's not going to go bad!" To which I replied with a flat look on my face, "Then why do they put best by dates on beers?" He refunded me with a comparable six-pack, but said he wouldn't do it again -- and I never went back to the place.
In fairness, it's actually been a while since I last heard that kind of comment from a retailer. It's taken a while, but I think most retailers are now aware that beer does in fact go bad, and that freshness can be an issue. Of course awareness is one thing... getting them to do anything about it is a whole different kettle of fish.
As in most cases, I think that's dependent individually.* If a place is focused on good product and service -- or really enthusiastic about a product, then yes. You see more conscientiousness. However, there is still plenty of ignorance out there. "What? Beer is beer." Small steps in the journey. *See my previous post about two different beer department managers at different stores in the same chain -- one who couldn't care less and another who was very enthusiastic.
I bet I would have gotten exchange had I spoke with a manager or something. This guy really did seem very much like he didn't know much besides ringing people out.
People in the Chicago/Milwaukee area rave about Woodman's and their beer section -- and for the most part, they're right. However, I've never been able to find anyone who can actually be considered a department manager at either of the 2 stores I frequent. And yeah -- I stopped asking the cashiers for any info a long time ago.
Same thing happened to me a few months ago. Thankfully it doesnt happen too often. It was at a store I hardly ever go to so its easy for me to not go there again. It tasted old and I knew something was off.
Yes, I get that but my point was that unless it's a one-off glitch, if Founders has started eliminating putting dates on their beer labels, then I'll have to reconsider buying their brews. Hopefully it was just a one-time omission for the (hopefully recent) Backwoods Bastard 4 packs.
I was in a store a couple days ago and checked a bottle of BB, and it carried a date on the back label. I have some KBS and three of the variants, some CBS, and a Barleywine in my fridge that are all dated on the back label, so it looks like Founders likely dates all of their dark beers.
Terrible. I have a new wrinkle to this dilemma. As some people mentioned in this thread, they only buy beer directly from the breweries they visit. This has been my go to plan for a long time. However I have noticed that at least two breweries that I visit, the beers they are selling are actually older than the product they are sending out to distributors. They are sending the fresh batches out and selling older stock at the brewery.
