In All Its Hypelessness, the “Shelf Turd” Abides

Even if a release takes all day (or just generally longer than it typical does) to sell out, it's not sitting on shelves for weeks, months, years, etc. greeting customers and announcing its own failure to sell.

Of course, brewers also have more power to change this perception. They can pull stock, save it for vintage releases, on-site pours, etc. to keep the image of a quick sell out and/or limited release.

FWIW, we don't have a lot of local releases that warrant this type of attention. It seems like most, if not all, of the Black Friday stout releases in my area sold out at their respective breweries on that day. With that in mind, I haven't experienced a situation where a brewery-only release would remotely be considered a 'shelf turd'. By contrast, Perennial's Abraxas, that in years past sold out in minutes in stores across the metro upon delivery sits for weeks at a minimum now. I'm pretty sure I've seen some of last year's release on shelves still too. Variant kegs, which are extremely limited, no longer blow within the same day they are tapped. I'm picking on Perennial - it's still a damn good beer - just doesn't have the same public attraction, FOMO-hype as before, and landing in the 'shelf turd' area.

 

When does beer turn into a shelf turd? IMO A lager or hoppy ale becomes a shelf turd after about 4-6 months. High ABV more malty beers probably 4-5 years? Even big beers if not properly cellared are at great risk of turning for the worse at some point if sitting on a store shelf for too long. There are some exceptions of course but those beers are outliers and not the norm.

 

+ if that beer becomes mediocre to awful, & someone actually buys it for the first time, they're likely to never buy it again.
& possibly hesitate to buy anything new-to-them , or even anything at all, from that store.

 

IMO…a 2-3 year old CBS found in the wild = not a shelf turd probably still darn tasty. A 12 year old CBS bottle found on a store shelf….probably tastes like soy sauce as it wasn’t properly cellared this = a shelf turd.

 

Do you think a typical/casual craft beer consumer would 'blame' the retailer? Or more likely they would think the brewery produces crappy beer?

Cheers!

 

Casual drinker? First thought is probably gonna be that the beer sucks. I spent a good year or two drinking several month old IPA’s that probably deserve more consideration than they got from me simply because I wasn’t aware at that time how much age affects certain beers. I knew for a fact I had drank several month old Busch Light and it wasn’t bad compared to fresh, so what could be the difference?

Cheers.

 

I followed the same path…2 years of drinking singles off the shelf without a clue about freshness. I eventually learned and then later noticed that hardly any beers in that store were fresh.

 

Likewise my friend. You could say I started with blaming the brewery and eventually blamed the retailer.

 

A less obnoxious, value-ridden term than “shelf turd” is shelfie.

For instance, “I used to have to travel, trade or spend big money to get my hands on Heady Topper or Sip of Sunshine. Now they’re shelfies around these parts.”

 

I feel like "shelfie" generally refers to a beer that's available year round and can be found at retailers. So your example sentence is accurate to my understanding of the word, but it's not replacing "Shelf turd" in that sentence.

 

Shelfie: accessible
Shelf turd: accessible, but no one wants it (because of price/format/age/we're just not that into you anymore/etc.)

 

I always have considered a Shelf Turd anything that doesn't move quickly. That could be Old Milwaukee or BBCS.

And sometimes one man's Shelf Turd is another man's Shelf Treasure. I know I've bought weird stuff at small, out of town shops that noone else is. Like the time I found some (old) Zombie Dust at this shop in Minnesota . . .

 

And remember:

 

We got this here last month. I would never have guessed this was once a sought-after beer. I've seen quite a few bottles sitting on the shelf, seemingly not moving. Especially at the $15+ dollar price point. Kind of like those newer Big Bad Baptist variants. We still had plenty of the 2021 bottles left when the 2022 variants came in.

 

How long does it have to sit there before it turdifies do you reckon?

 

Honestly depends on the beer, some of these "drink fresh" NEIPA's become shelf turds after a month, while some beers arguably get better with age

 

I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder. With hoppy beers like the ones you mentioned, in wouldn't buy them after 3 or 4 months. Something like bcbs or some of the other formerly exalted stouts that are only released once annually I pick them up with 9 or 10 months without a second thought (I don't typically reach for flavored stouts so the flavor changes tend to be less dramatic). So in that case, the 2022 bcbs at my local bevmo wouldn't be a shelf turd in my book, but the stack of 2021 bcbs cola in that same store would count.

Like i said, there's a lot of personal perspective involved. But as long as beers are cycling through enough to maintain a reasonable level of freshness I feel like the shelf turd moniker is a bit too disparaging for my taste. Good beers that I can reliably and easily obtain (i.e. "shelfies") are my favorite.

 

When it starts to get hard? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Cheers!