Non dated APA/IPA

Which "non-dated IPA's" are they? It is not unheard of for distributors to deliver out-of-code beer to a retailer (nor, sadly, for a retailer to accept them without question and stock them).

 

Assumed fresh in NJ at least. Hunterdon Distributing does a lot of the craft beer sales, and their QC is top notch.

Also, distributors dont want inventory sitting in their warehouses raising costs, so they try and turn over beer asap, within a month normally

 

They could be old... Happens to me quite a bit.

 

I just got burned with some Maine Beer Co Pepper.
The store had been out for awhile. They just got more in of everything except lunch.
I bought it without looking at the date. The I got home I saw it was bottled in October.
Never assume.

 

I don't know if you can blame that - a beer at worse only a bit over 3 months old - on Hunterdon without knowing Maine's suggested shelf life period. 3 months is about the shortest shelf life's around for bottled products - off-hand I can think of both Stone and Ithaca using it, but 5 - 6 is a lot more typical in the US craft segment of the industry.

Granted, we may have "personal" shelf life periods for certain beer styles or brands, but I'll never take "We just got that in!" as a substitute for a date code.

I agree, if there's a date code, I check it even when I was there to watch the distributor handtruck the cases into the store (and I've found out-of-code stuff in such a case). And if there's no code, I skip it.

 

Agreed. Never assume always check. My point exactly.