Brewer responsibility.

Legally the only responsibility to a brewer is that the product does not cause personal injury to the consumer. Obviously the brewer is interested in more that just the legal angle, and all of the rest of the 'responsibilities' relate to the brewer's reputation for making a quality tasting product, at least in the eyes of the majority of the customers. For the customers who don't think it's a quality tasting product, oh well, we're all different.

 

Hill Farmstead, Alchemist, Trillium & Treehouse are perhaps the top 4 breweries in New England in my opinion. I generally trust (and love!) the small operations more, but brewers like Sierra Nevada have proven that it can be done to the highest quality in big batches.

It seems that when you farm out distribution, it can get iffy. My quarrel would probably lie with the distributors and large liquor stores who leave old product on the shelves. The brewer's reputation is riding on the beer, and this does the company no good. Rarely will I buy something without a cipherable date. And when I'm burned I generally won't go back to that brewery, at least for quite a while.

The brewers can control only so much. Unless they remain relatively small like the New England Four (so far...) above, things can get dicey. I'd say grow slowly for the brewers, and drink locally for us!

 

Do you hold these brewers responsible for the quality of their beers on the secondary market? As a result of their control of the distribution, there are many more instances of bars/shops/individuals selling these products outside of proper channels. For widely distributed beers, the secondary market and associated problems are a non-issue. If a particular store or distributor is a problem, it is there fault, not the brewer. If the beer is not maintained properly and does not sell, then the store/distributor stops carrying it. Different set of problems, but both models have their good and bad points.

 

Smaller Brewers that control their distro and have in demand beers can control quite a bit. They can ship cold, they can mandate that a retailer store cold on the floor and in the back. OMB does this I believe or they won't sell you their beer. They also date check their stuff, and they're not widely dudtributed , well not outside Charlotte right now. Brewers who sell and dump are asking for trouble on crowded shelves.

 

I'm a bit weary of those holding a brewer 3000 miles away somehow responsible for beer not moving/stored wrong. Local small operations could conceivably monitor to some extent but that takes $$$ and time which are usually in short supply for the small guys.

The distributer should be sensitive to age/amount and the retailer shouldn't stock what doesn't sell within a reasonable time for the majority of their customer base.

If a place is storing/displaying improperly--go somewhere else--that's easy.

 

I think the largest responsibility of a brewer distributing their beer is to provide legible date codes (bottled on or best by) for the retailers and the consumers to be able to adjust their expectations according to the beers age. It baffles me that some breweries are still so cryptic about the bottled or best by date and it is incredibly frustrating to have to bust out my Little Orphan Annie decoder ring every time I buy a bomber. I can do without you telling me the OG, IBUs, and SRM, just tell me how fresh it is.

 

Funny enough is that perhaps one of the most popular and sought after beers in the country is not date stamped! Heady!

 

My distributor has an online inventory database that i have a log in too. I can see just how long my beer is really sitting in their warehouse. After that I have zero control over the beer. I do frequent local retailers and ill check backstock for dates and as long as they are to standard Im happy.

 

Ties closely to the dating issue. I can't understand why a brewer doesn't clearly print a best by date in a plain easy to read format. Without it they run the risk of someone buying old product and coming up with the thought that they don't like their beer, when in fact it was just old. Also many aficionados won't buy beer that isn't dated in some way, myself included after being burned too many times. Seems like it would be a simple way to ensure customers get the best product they can and the brewery gets the best reputation it can.
I'm sure there is pressure from the distribution side to not date, because it makes their life easier and they don't have to pay a whole lot of attention and they don't wind up with returns.

 

This is true, but I believe I recall a video in which the owner/brewer posted on YouTube a comparison between a fresh Heady and one that was 1 year old. Implying that no doubt they look different, and taste different, that they were still both world class. Now, if they would just clearly mark which ones are filtered and not filtered, that'd be awesome.

 

Typically, they sell it to a distributor and ownership transfers. Better distributors service accounts and pull old stock. Brewers would be wise to partner with the better distributors for their product is spread over many states making "brewer policing" cost prohibitive.

 

There's a dirty little secret craft brewers don't want you to know, if there's a best by date, then they risk product not being sold ever because a lot of people look at best by dates like they would on milk. So, if they don't date at all, they save the pennies on the dating machine but then also don't have to worry as much about product which will never move because of it's age.

 

The 'old' beer was about 10 months old but the critical aspect was the beer was continuously stored cold for the entire 10 months. Continuous cold storage greatly aids beer stability.

Cheers!

 

When I wander thru a place like Total Wine I'm just amazed, all that great hoppy beer dying there right on the shelf and in their back room. How often do you suppose that Avery IPA gets rotated as an example? If there are dates on stuff I'm never surprised to see IPAs 8 month old or longer on the shelf, especially where they bust up into singles. In comparison Bestway beer is predominately stored cold, both out front and in the back. There's cases stacked on the floor , but it's fresh inventory and beer that will rotate pretty quickly. There's not a chance in hell Tryon or Barringer gives two shits about what you do or what happens to the beer once they deliver it, they're not buying back a damn thing. The best you can do is check out local, check out dates, shop at a smaller shop that has to by its nature be diligent with inventory levels. The one thing they can't control is the distributor over buying and having warm beer being stored warm, there's a chance the beer turns right there before the retailer ever orders it. Then along you come. For he most part no can date I don't buy.

 

I can't imagine how daunting it must be to police the shelves of numerous retailers to ensure your product is sold fresh. The most responsible thing a brewery can do is to clearly give a "bottled on" or "best by" date. As consumers we have more exposure to the product when it hits the shelves and a date lets us know if the beer is fresh. I'm not saying it's the job of the consumer to police the shelves either but numerically we are greater. I would say that if you report old beer to a brewery it would be the responsible decision to do something about it...but unfortunately that isn't always the case. I would reserve any judgement until you actually report old beer and either get an email back or notice a stock change at the store. Sometimes the brewery just doesn't know and other times they simply don't care. You won't know until you start a dialog.

Additionally you might want to just talk to the manager at the store instead. Solve the problem at the source.

 

Some micros exact high levels of control.

 

That is why, in the Three Tier system, it is the wholesale distributor's job to do that.

Obviously, given the amount of different products on the shelves from any one distributor (especially the out of code packages ), a good brewer should also have a local regional rep monitoring the distributor.

 

Unless the brewery is self distributing. The amount of actual control they have over their product once it leaves their property is about nil. Brewers can claim to be hot shit on handling product that is on market but out of date. But. First and foremost when this claim is claimed is to ask about their sales team and the size of their respective territories because let's be honest about what sales are actually about and admit that they go where there is money to be made, and are not there to hold hands for some shop that over-ordered something that they could not deliver on selling. If it's an actual issue with the product itself. That's another topic altogether. If it's an issue that it's being over-ordered in a market that isn't ready for what is being ordered. That is all on the buyer, and they should learn self restraint.
If what you want to do is complain that a brewery from the opposite side of the country always has old product on your shelf in your neck of the woods. What you should probably do is assess what it is that you drinking and why exactly is it in your neck of the woods in the first place because the furthur you are away from the center, and the more hands that message goes through. It gets purple monkey dishwashered. i.e. The more abstract a re-presentation of the original idea becomes. And that's what these beers become when they have to go through various distribution networks to get to you. The actual presentation of the beer in question is poured at its source. Everything else is a re-presentation.
Moreover. The end consumer. i.e. YOU and Me are fickle, and about as faithful as a prostitute when it comes to our choice(s) in what we're quaffing and it is also a very finite space that is bursting at the seems with choice.

 

Except that breweries that package theirs beers (i.e., bottles, cans) do not intend for these particular beers to be consumed at the 'source'. They put those bottles/cans in boxes and those boxes are packaged on pallets with shrink wrap for transport to wholesale distributors. The brewery should be producing product that is capable of being consumed in a tasty manner someplace others than their brewery. For example, the mega-breweries make a conscious decision to pasteurize their bottles/cans to maximize the shelf life of their beers that are intended to be consumed not at the brewery.

It really is a responsibility of breweries to do their best to ensure that their beers taste as best as they can be for the intended consumer market. An example here is Russian River who demands that anybody selling their beers maintain their beers in refrigerated conditions since cold storage maximizes beer shelf life. Another example is that a wholesale distributor near me got the rights to distribute New Belgium beer and New Belgium demanded that all of their beers be stored cold at that wholesale distributor. The wholesale distributor moved to a new building/location in order to fulfill those storage demands.

Cheers!