Born Yesterday 2024 Bottle Date

This actually seems very odd to me. I lived in Baltimore for 8/9 years and NN was extremely popular there. It shouldn't have been any problem for the distributor to find a home for 6/12 packs of NN, while it was still fresh and enjoyable. My guess is that a pallet got misplaced in the warehouse, and the distributor came across it well after NN season was over.

That being said, still sounds like a douche move to try to unload it on some unsuspecting retailer.

When I lived in Baltimore, it was actually fashionable for a while for certain taphouses to sit on a keg of NN. I remember the owner of Hudson St. Stackhouse being so proud of himself that he was able to pour NN a week or two before the new release... only to be utterly dismayed when most of his customers told him it tasted terrible. Another year Casey at Max's bought every keg of NN that came into the Baltimore area, so Max's could have it on tap most of the year. As I recall, the last keg kicked in early November. It wasn't showing particularly well by that time, and I remember Casey saying "lesson learned, I won't ever do that again."

It really seems to be a hard sell getting proprieters to understand that beer is a living organism, and just like other food products, over time the flavor will change and can even go bad.

 

That's my recollection as well, but even the last batch of the season was typically popular and in demand. I didn't visit every city or county liquor store in Maryland, but the ones I did visit... this wasn't a beer that tended to languish on the shelf. I remember visiting Pine Orchard out in Ellicott City one year, precisely because they tended not to sell out of NN as quickly as other stores (most people shopped there for wine and liquor - they had a great selection of both). LOL! I remember running into several customers there for exactly the same reason.

Most customers didn't keep track of the Troegs seasonal cycle... so when the supply would start to dry up, panic would ensue.