IPA Freshness Hype

I haven't measured and done verticals and so forth, but whenever I have had an IPA with off flavors, they more often than not turn out to be over 90 days old. That's now become my rule of thumb: 90 days from bottling date. Older than that? Pass. Will give a little slack for double/imperial IPAs.

 

A lot to read here... Excuse me if I am repeating anything. My problem is a lot craft beer stores in NY (Hudson Valley) tend to over order IPA's to keep a large variety in stock and the eventually get old. While other styles have no problem sitting in the shelves I have come across many core IPA'S (Stone, Avery, Captain Lawrence, Lagunitas, etc) which were over 6 months old and were basically more malt than hops. I love my IPA's fresh so I do check the date's on bottles but prefer anything fresh from the local breweries. Its inevitable that these beer stores are going to end up returning a lot of beer if they keep up with these practices.

 

I have had a couple ipas that I noticed were passed the date and it is a noticeable difference to me. I have had a Ruin Ten and an Enjoy by fresh and you get massive fruit. Then when I bought more a month or so later it had gone to more of an onion/garlic herbal flavor. Not complaining because I enjoyed them but I have noticed a difference.

 

Some guy on here wouldn't do a trade because the Swamis I had was a week old. By the time it traveled across the the country it would of been 2 weeks old tops. He said couldn't do it that's just to old for him.


The really funny part is that was a really dank batch I got the next batch that was 3 days old and older one I was going to trade was still drinking way better.

 

^ his loss. Swamis is amazing

 

It was such a dank batch like coat your mouth resiny goodness. 5/13/2014 Bought 2 cases

"Two weeks old bro? I can't take that risk man"

 

It depends on the beer. Hopslam seriously has a shelf life in a bottle of maybe 3 weeks. After that it gets all kinds of honey/malty. Almost no hops. As a general consensus I tend to avoid any IPA over a month old. Fat heads head hunter is one I've had a few months old that was still very good but a shell of its former self when fresh( when fresh you get a lot more grapefruit/ berryness happening, when aged you get just mostly pine with some citrus but nothing as vibrant as new) Canned IPA's seem to last a bit longer. I've had 2 month old heady topper that tasted pretty much identical to 2 week old. Most IPA's start falling off at about a month or so though.

 

a big aroma matters to me

 

I'm all for asking for freshness in trade...denial based on a week or 2 is just idiotic.

 

Ummmm, hoppy beers taste better when, ummm, hoppy? Next thread.

 

I started to check bottle dates after buying a few mix 6's of ipas and at least 2 of them having no hop flavor left in them. It was even worse spending $7-$15 on the larger bottles with the hop flavor faded out. I don't buy an IPA for the malt flavor so its necessary to check the dates so I don't waste my money.