IPA Freshness Hype

I do think that it makes a difference, but in general people take it too seriously. I am stil enjoying a few leftover Sucks and Hopslams.

That said, the Pipeworks Ninja vs. Unicorn I just grabed is only 2 weeks old

 

I did an all citra IPA homebrew in November of 2012 so I was able to taste the same batch at different stages. When it was first bottled up until about January it had a bright tropical aroma and a juicy hop flavor, by March the hop presence was dwindling and the last one I drank while it was still good it had a stale not so hoppy flavor and very light hop aroma.

 

The wonderful thing about living in an area with a great local beer culture is that you can buy an ipa weeks after its brewed. Why go for 4 month old FW Double Jack when you can grab a 2 week old rev anti-hero? Freshness tastes fresh, which is great.

 

A beer friend once let a Pliny The Elder age for a year, in the refrigerator. We bought a fresh Pliny and did a blind comparison. The difference in the aroma was huge. All four of us instantly picked the fresh Pliny over the aged Pliny. The taste difference was more subtle, but still noticeable. There you go. Science. Sorry for adding to this overwrought thread.

 

That bore repeating.

 

Wow sorry but i disagree! I find One of my local fav's Gandhi bot loses bit a little after two weeks after canning. In my book it goes from a 5 to a 3.75 in about three weeks, but just my opinion.

 

I love barleywines, which is what a lot of these seem to become. Malt presence definitely takes more of a front seat after a year or so. In my experience.

 

I typically like my IPAs fresh, but the higher the quality the less of a difference I have found it makes if I wait a month or two. This being said, no IPA or beer in general tastes as delicious as that freshly tapped at a brewery in my opinion.

 

Bitterness generally does not fade over time, what you will lose are some of the aromatics. My bro and I did a batch of dry hopped IPA homebrew last year and fresh it was damn tasty. After 6 months however the aromatics became flat, it was a completely different beer.

 

This is where trading, or on line stores may help out. I've had Pliny that was 8 days old when I bought it, and 5 days later it was in my fridge.

 

I feel like this is such a great example of why BA is here - there are facts and there are opinions, sometimes they get mixed up and we all get angry and then laugh and cry a little bit but in the end we all just drink what we like

 

Last Sept I did a road trip to go hiking. I brought back a shitload of beers and one that really stood was FW Double Jack. When I went to Chicago for my DLD trip I bought, without looking at the dates, a 4 pack and a bomber.

Last night I had a bottle from the 4 pack dated Dec 26th (ugh). It was flat. If I was rating that beer it's a 3.

Right now I'm drinking the bomber dated March 1st. Normally too late for me but this beer is fucking amazing and what I remebered Double Jack to be. Definitely 4.5 territory.

There is NO HYPE.

 

ya people are whack. just drink beer.

 

It really isn't hype! I buy a case of Pliny per month so *I* know. Right now I am drinking the 4/10/13 batch. It was fantastic when I got it on the 14th of April... but now it's faded slightly. I'd say it's gone from fantastic to pretty damn good in just under a month.

 

The freshness thing isn't hype for me. It's a way to pick which IPA I buy! If I go to the store looking for an IPA, and they have Two-Hearted, Loose Cannon, and Smuttynose Finestkind, I'm going to pick the freshest one out of the three, since they're all beers I really enjoy. Honestly, any of the above will be tasty, if not to their full potential, after a couple of months. But when I can pick one that's just a couple of weeks old, I'll take the fresh one.

 

I couldn't have described it better myself in every regard to your post. The word 'stale' works best. Some brews are better in a week or two than right off the belt. And yes, in the end I'll buy what I want. Touche sir

 

I think every beer is different with regards to Timeframe on fading/changing taste.

I've come to notice huge, and I mean huge differences in Hoppy beers after 3 months.
I had a fresh heady topper vs a 4 month old heady, and the taste was drastically different.
Same with Zombie dust. Drastic difference for the worse.

Hops lam seams to fade into a great place after a couple month, not as fresh or hoppy, but still terrific.

If you drink the beers fresh often, you will notice it a lot more than if you only drink it occasionally IMO.

I say: Fresh is King!

 

The best way to catch that wonderful hop aroma and freshest taste is to run out to the nearest hop farm during a rain storm, bring your favorite glassware, and catch the falling rain off the hops in said glassware. Now thats hop farm fresh!

 

I'll check dates for any beer I buy, but I think it's particularly important with IPAs. To be honest, the freshest IPA I've ever had was a sixer of Two-Hearted that had been bottled three weeks before I bought it. Two Hearted is a solid beer regardless, but I definitely felt like the "fruitiness" of the beer was more pronounced at the age I had it.

Unfortunately, small town eastern KY isn't much of hotbed for fresh craft beer, so I'll take whatever I can get here.

 

I might be getting some Duet, Nelson, or other IPA's from the Alpine Brewery. I'm not quite sure how old the beer will be by the time I receive this from a friend (maybe a month) but does anyone know if Alpine beers (particularly Pale ales and IPA's) needs to be drank fresh (I'm not quite clear how one defines fresh in terms of time) or is sitting in fridge for maybe a month okay prior to consumption? I know its kind of a weird question...maybe an OCD thing I have about beer?