I left Boston for Washington State six years ago. One thing I noticed very quickly once I got here was that the beer available in shops was on average much fresher than what was available in Boston. For example, most of the IPAs in my local Total Wine are less than two months old, and six packs less than 10 days old are not unheard of. In Boston IPAs less than two months old were a comparative rareity. Is this still the case around Boston? (Please note that I'm an MOR craft beer drinker - most of what I got in Boston was Smuttynose, Jack's Abby, Ipswich, Mayflower & etc).
Sorry but this title reads like the back of a weekly city rag about 15 years ago. Not trying to derail @OffTrail rail.
Nope, not the case at all. But I also don’t bulk purchase either. So I can’t speak to 15 packs of Jack’s Abby for example. Their Keller Series and seasonals show up fresh. But those are also rotating. This is kind of hard to compare though, because the game has completely changed in the last 6 years. There’s tons of fresh IPAs, but there’s also A LOT of local breweries making new ones all the time.
No? Could I find some old IPAs at my local packy? Yes. Could I find some fresh IPAs at my local packy? Yes. Also, Smuttynose went out of business so I wouldn't use them as an example of freshness.
depending on the store they may be more or less careful with ages. The Total Wine and Wegmans near me are both notorious (IMO) for old beer - though if you're careful you can get freshies - I generally don't buy from either of those places, though, I prefer the locally owned shops. A couple of my locals are really good as far as turnover. I've rarely found old IPAs, though BA stouts and such will hang around for a long time sometimes. I'm OK with that - time on those isn't always bad. One of them is pretty rough on age, though, I only go in there these days if I'm looking for limited allocations.
