Keg Freshness...am I being too picky?

What about the relationship between the retailer and the customer (the source of all of the money that gets passed up the chain)? Make your preference known when you place the order. If he cares about his customers, he'll make that clear to the distributor when he orders it. If the distributor can get what you want, he'll get it. There will be no surprises and nothing will need to be returned. The 'best by' date is not a magic number. If you want a keg that is one week old, and the distributor can get it, you'll get a one week old keg. It may not be practical or even possible to give you exactly what you want every time (one week may be pushing it), but there is some flexibility. And, since they would be going out of their way for you, you might consider buying lunch or at least a beer every now and then.

 

My guy at my beer store checks if I ask him to, which I will do for beers I want to ensure are fresh.

 

I personally wouldn't accept a 4 month old IPA. I ordered a 1/6th of Finest Kind which is made about 3 hours North of me and said no deal.

 

I never check dates, but I don't buy "Specialty Beers". I'm more of a Sam Adams/Fat Tire type of drinker. They produce more; and I get 1/2 kegs. 1/6 kegs only last me about 2 weeks and cost much more per ounce than 1/2 kegs.

If I was getting 1/6 keg of such beers, I'd probably go with whatever was delivered until I got something that wasn't right.

 

I don't usually order kegs for personal use but I do order beer for my pub and I have on numerous occasions rejected kegs that were out of date or just not fresh enough. Now, my distributors know not to even send me old beer. There's no reason my customers should have to drink old beer because I let a distributor send it to me. And if you're paying for a product for personal use, you have the same right to fresh product.

 

No way. When you order beer you expect fresh beer, never accept anything else. Now freshness limits you have to personally decide on, but that's a different discussion. As @mikehartigan said, when ordering let it be known you will only accept a fresh keg so that way your beer store knows to check when they do the ordering. Once that happens a few times, your store will know from that point on that freshness counts for you.

I had this discussion with another BAer a few months ago when we discussed the Nugget Nectar keg release from last year (2014). They tried to tell me that it took "time" for the beer to flow through the distribution channel to get to the consumer, sometimes upwards of 2 months. I called total BS on that. I've regularly had kegs from all over the country (New England area, West Coast area, Mid West etc) that have showed up at my beer stores door in less than a week from the kegged on date. This BAer tried to tell me it took 7 weeks for a keg from Troegs (which is only a two hour drive from me) to get through the "distribution channel" to my store? Ummmm, no. I was right, this year kegs (2015) were dated a week prior to my purchase.

Bottom line. Fresh beer is readily available if your store/stores do the right thing and insure the beer they receive from the wholesaler is fresh. That's all that needs to be done and it's your job to make sure they do it the right way......or else you'll be settling for the oldest kegs sitting in someone's warehouse because they want to get rid of them.

PS: 8 months ago I refused a 5 month old keg of Sixpoint Sweet Action that was ordered for me. I contacted @Sixpoint here and he had a uber fresh Sweet Action in my hands 2 weeks later that I received through normal distribution channels. He cared enough about his beer and the freshness of it that he dug into why there was this old beer sitting around. Not everyone will have a resource like Shane at Sixpoint available, but if you insist on freshness, you can easily get it.

Cheers.

 

We all need to believe that old beer is not acceptable. The last keg I got I told the lady that the keg fill date needs to be less than 3 months old. Many of the ipa's I wanted were well beyond that. Distributers and stores need to pay more attention to the age of the beer they are trying to sell.
I just ordered anther 5 gallon keg from my local "Bev" store and gave them a few kegs I would like to buy. I also said I will not buy the keg over 4 months old.

 

You are too forgiving. If you get an IPA at 3 months old it is already in it's twilight. Other styles aren't such a big deal.

 

Working for a distributor I can safely say that at bare minimum you are looking at a two week to 2 month shelf life as it arrives in stores depending on origination of the brewery. Most are a little under a month as they arrive. The beer it self for most beers is good well past the best by date. 4 months is a little dated on an ipa I agree. However some distributors simply stop taking stuff when they get returned etc cause they are typically the guys that eat it if it doesn't sell.

 

Well I just picked up a keg of Simtra 5 gallon which is dated 3/16/15. This is pretty good for freshness. I had ordered a 5 gallon keg of Hop Deranged which is their quad IPA and is 13.1 %. It came in dated somewhere in October of 2014. I passed on it. It was also a hundred dollars more than the triple Simtra. For $240 I need a fresher keg. The nice lady at Bevmo called Knee Deep brewery and they stated that the quad IPA has a 9 month shelf life. I doubt they would lie but I just don't want to take a chance at that price.I have read that higher abv. beers have a longer shelf life.

 

The bigger the ABV the longer the shelf life.

 

So a large abv. 13% could very well be considered fresh at 6 months?

 

Yup.

 

Not in my eyes. 6 months a 13% abv DIPA is still probably good, but it's far from "fresh".

 

High abv or not, I would never accept a IPA keg more than 2-3 weeks old for my kegerator.

 

With a dipa or tipa the freshness isn't really there cause you lose some of the hops, but yeah it will still be good to drink it will however taste slightly different.

 

You most have some great distributors in your area.
Freshest keg I have seen at the retailers was 3 weeks old. Even ordering a keg in they all seem to be "too" old. The first keg I purchased was a Sculpin. I did not see the date till I got home. It was over 5 months old. I took it back without tapping. Ballast Point said they don't recommend any of there beers over 3 months past kegged date. I just wonder will these retailers accept a returned keg after tapping and deciding the beer is not up to quality standards?

 

And a friend who owns a beer store. The last pale keg I got was a Maine mo and I think it was 10 days old. If I'm going to have a keg on tap at my house for a month or two I want it to still taste fresh to the last drop.