The other problem is that it ages pretty quickly (in my experience). It's great beer when Uber fresh, but is pretty run of the mill after a couple months sitting on the shelf.
I agree that the hoppy beers from Fat Heads are similar to other commercial brewery hoppy beers that hop fade occurs over a couple/few months especially when stored at room temperature. A week ago I saw fresh Fat Heads Ambush IPA on my local supermarket's shelf (canned 12/30/25). I typically would only purchase a single six-pack but since this batch was so fresh I purchased two. I immediately put those 12 cans in my beer refrigerator when I got them home. Even with refrigeration I will make it a point to consume all of those beers within the next 1.5 to 2 months. Hoppy beers like IPAs benefit from the combination of cold storage and quick consumption. Cheers!
I've frequently noticed at multiple places, locally, beers that have date stamps on the bottom of cans that look to have been smudged just to the point of being illegible. I've never systematically tried to connect them to a particular distributor, so I'm not sure who's to blame for it, but I have come away with a feeling that it's deliberate.
That happens on the canning line most often. Bad ink-jetting. I don't think that ink can actually be smudged after it dries.
There are some beers here that put a date on the plastic 4-6 pack holder with a small “price type” sticker. Easy to read. When I see these missing or looking like they got wet(unreadable) I always figure it’s old and done by the retailer. Dont see it often but do see it. A few places on Jersey I have seen white stickers put over the date on bottles and paper box six packs. As mentioned before, most people don’t look and don’t care about dates. A great old friend loves hoppy ipa. She never looks at dates and wonders out loud sometimes why her beer taste bad-not like it was last time. I look and tell her it’s 10 months old. Her reply is always “they told me it was fresh, just stocked”. She won’t look at dates. Enjoy
I unloaded trucks at the local Sams Club for a couple of years. Every pallet had experation/bottling date on it so it could be tracked. We sent pallets back to the distro if they were still racked and had 2 weeks left on the date. That being said, Sams sold the usual crap.
LOL! I had a very similar experience at the San Jose California Total Wine a couple years ago. I was there to pick up some gin for my wife, but thought I might as well check out the craft beer selection while I was there. Naturally, most of the selection was sitting on the shelf, unrefrigerated. There were three or four beers that looked interesting to me, but only one had a bottling date. It was an ipa that was nearly 10 months past it's bottling date. Anyway, one of the employees there saw me wandering around and decided to see if I needed any assistance. I told her I was just browsing, but also mentioned that I was an ipa fan. I told her I was impressed by their selection, but was concerned that with such a large selection, there might be some danger buying old, stale beer. She proudly told me that she was the assistant manager and that I wouldn't find any out of code beer in her store. She advised me that she personally checked the shelves weekly,... sometimes even more often than that. Out of code beer was immediately pulled. This was such obvious BS, it pissed me off. I pulled the ipa off the shelf I'd been looking at and showed it to her. She acted completely surprised and immediately blamed a subordinate for not pulling the beer off the shelf. So I asked her if she was going to pull it now. She said of course... this was just an oversight. I came by the store again a couple days later before heading out of town. You can probably guess what was back out on the shelf.
I recently made an online purchase from Total Wine in MD. Hazy IPAs from Canada. I didn't check dates on the sixers until getting home and it was more than a year old. Sure enough the hazy had a bitter taste. I felt taken an d wrote so on the email feedback request. I got a call the next Miranda my money was refunded. So I don’t appreciate the wasted effort, but I was pleased with the stores response. I would have rather have had fresh beer …
As frustrating as all these shenanigans are, they make for good stories under the “Our Customers Don’t Matter” banner. Based on your episode, me wonders if TW sent out some kind of memo to managers last year on “Grandstanding Guidelines When Encountering Quality- or Date-Conscious Beer Snobs.” Like you, I was wandering the TW beer aisles last summer, trying to find something I was in the mood for that wasn’t more than 2-3 months old. After passing me a few times, a manager asked if she could be of assistance. I noted the difficulty of finding something in my wheelhouse that still was at its peak, and she quickly countered that things were going to change. She allowed they also were growing weary of outdated beer on the shelves. I was momentarily speechless, because I couldn’t fathom that kind of glacial shift in attitude by TW. You know what’s changed in the months after that conversation: nuttin’. But at least they haven’t gone as far as smudging or altering date codes — perhaps because no one knows where to find them.
We had a local store (now no longer in business) that actively bought old out of date and/or returned beers directly from the Distributors at a steep discount then stacked the cases on the floor with a sign that said "Just Arrived".
TW seems to be notorious for old beer ESPECIALLY in the singles section. I never buy from TW unless there is a packaged date.
This pretty much applies to Binny's out here as well. And I do the same (unless it's something like a recent seasonal release).
I guess I'm thinking particularly of Head Hunter, but in my experience Fat Head ipa's seem to age more rapidly than other, similar ipa's. The few times I've been able to obtain bottles of HH that were a couple weeks old, the beer was markedly better than the same beer 4 or 5 weeks old. Not that 4 or 5 week old HH was terrible, but it just didn't have that perfumy nose... and the beer didn't pop, the way uber fresh bottles do. So I would be very careful about purchasing any FH IPA's, and likely wouldn't buy anything more than 6 or 7 weeks old. Of course it's a moot point at this stage, as the FH facility out here has long since closed and FH beers are no longer available in the PNW.
FWIW I have experienced quick hop fade from other commercially brewed IPAs with one example being Cigar City Jai Alai. My personal strategy is solely purchase very fresh IPAs (e.g., a month or less from packaging) and when I get those canned beers home they immediately get placed in my beer refrigerator. When I homebrew IPAs I place those beers in the beer refrigerator once they complete conditioning and I make it a point to consume them within 3 months from the bottling date. Those beers are bottle conditioned and the presence of live yeast within the bottle acts like an anti-oxidant so they tend to hold up a bit better. Cheers!
Glad I've never bought singles from Binny's. Then again, I've never bought singles anywhere -- maybe a blessing in disguise.
I'm all about the discount, but inventory is another issue. Especially the way stores are changing hands in my area lately. Also, if you have a small inventory with few selections, where will that get store owners? Listen, I'm on your side. I'd never advocate scratching dates off or any other such shady practice. My statement was pointed toward the market condition of old beer sitting on shelves for purchase only getting worse. And that's best case. Worst case, good craft shops are going to lessen in number. Worried about that.
Jai aLai is another good example imho. I was able to have a very fresh version only once while living back East, and it was the only time I enjoyed it. My strategy is similar to yours when I buy time sensitive beer (apas, ipas, pils, helles and the like). Typically, I only buy refrigerated beer and it goes immediately into the fridge when I get home. I don't buy large quantities of anything, and so it's rare for anything in the fridge to last more than a few days. 90% of the time I'm buying beer on draft anyway, where freshness is less of an issue.
First off, as I've stated in numerous threads before now: Never, EVER, buy ANYTHING from 'Total-Old-Ass-Beer' without checking the dates, or better yet, just don't EVER walk into their stores for any beer ever again. All that sed, I've recently discovered that Founders didn't bother to print any kind of date on their (supposedly) recent releases of 4 packs of Backwoods Bastard. I went ahead & bought a 4 pack anyway, but it'll be the last time I buy any expen$ive, supposedly barrel-aged Founders brews without a date again. If'n it don't have a Canned/Bottled/Packaged On or a 'Best By' date clearly identified (or at worst, a few check-ins on 'Dumcrapped' which would signify a fresh release), I ain't buying it anymore. No pun intended but...... This SHIT is gettin' OLD..........
