Does this exist anymore? I walked into a store I consider having a very good selection today looking for a few six packs to drink while watching The Masters this weekend. Saw Two Hearted cases stacked up. Picked up two six packs, headed towards the register, and noticed they had an early November bottle date! Went back to the stack of cases and found the most recent batch there was early December. This isn't an isolated event. Ended up grabbing some All Day IPA (probably a better choice for day drinking, but besides the point). With that said, is there any FRESH Two Hearted in the Detroit (at least Oakland County) area anymore? Every time I pick up a six pack, it is at least six weeks old, usually much older.
shop somewhere else. plum market in ann arbor has two hearted marked 3/19/13. kind of far from oakland but check the other plums, they may have fresher product than the other place
Grabbed some at Plum Bloomfield Hills today bottle dated early March. Surprised since it was Plum West Bloomfield that I was referencing in the first post.
We have mid March bottles also, Holiday RO, November dates are crazy. I just happened to see some at Target with December dates and thought that was insane
I've seen Two Hearted by the Meijer at my house that was less than two weeks old. Never more than two months.
Shop at stores that turn over inventory. Meijer and Kroger don't keep lots of back stock and should have fresh product in most cases. I prefer stores like Merchant's, Plum Market, Beer Baron, and Discount Drinks. Some liquor stores keep lots of inventory and don't rotate stock properly. A good retailer should be on top of this. The store is to blame, not the brewery or distributor.
I have this same problem. No matter if I go into my normal bottle shop or a Meijer/Kroger, I never see Two Hearted less than a 8 weeks old. For example, I stopped in Meijer today and checked the dates on the bottles there. They were from a January run. Um, no thanks. In my opinion, Two Hearted is one of those beers that just amazing SUPER fresh but falls off quickly to an average IPA after that. I don't always feel that way about every IPA though.
See, I agree that Two Hearted fresh is absolutely amazing, but I also honestly believe it handles time fairly well, especially when compared to a handful of other IPAs (Centennial, Hopslam, etc.)
As a rule of thumb with IPA's. If you see them stacked, or in any sort of quantity it is probably not a great idea to purchase from them. I keep about a two week supply of almost all IPAs just to make sure that they do not sit too long. I would rather be out of stock for a couple days than end up with three cases of three month old Two Hearted
I have found the same issue in mid-Michigan, I'm in Lansing. It's almost impossible to get a fresh IPA at most stores in and around town. Even some of the nicer bottle shops have old (and even expired) beers lying around. I brought it to the attention of the bottle shops a couple of times, but I don't want to be that guy that does it on every single trip to the store. So now I just stick to drinking IPAs and most lower abv beers exclusively on tap.
