Old IPAs - What to do about this problem?

When it comes to IPA's, I don't but anything that doesn't have a bottle date. With a bottle date, I won't buy anything more than a couple weeks old unless I know I will be drinking them quickly.

 

What beers are you finding at your beer store that is only 2 weeks old?

Cheers!

 

If you want fresh, go to the source. There are breweries everywhere, and I guarantee your conscience will totally dig your local brewery's fresh IPA, over something that has been bottled, stored, shipped, stored again, shipped again, stored again, and shelved at the beer shop.

Drink fresh, drink local... Problem solved.

 

Just drink it!

 

I generally only drink local IPAs unless I have something from VT or an Other Half release

 

I'm always surprised at how many out of date Stone beers I find in the LA area. I still report them to Stone via their web form, but it's getting to the point where I could do it almost every time I walk into a supermarket.

Also, I wish their web form was more mobile-friendly, since that's where most people will probably be doing their reporting.

 

One option is to buy a kegerator and get a 1/6 barrel of the ipa you like. It will most likely be fresh, and if not, then you can just ask your store for a fresher keg. Most likely, the keg will be pretty fresh almost every time unless the distributor was sitting on it for too long.

 

I skip bottles that do not have a bottle date, unless I know that the beer was just bottled/shelved. I tend to only buy IPAs that are less than a month old. Chicago gives me the opportunity to be a huge snob when it comes to freshness. I was recently out of state and purchased a 3 month old Stone beer, as I was surrounded by BMC. Was it bad? Of course not! It was tasty. But, I would much rather have had a fresher version. There really is a huge difference between day old and month old, let alone 3 month old. If you were to put me in a blind taste test and asked, "how old is that IPA?" I would not be able to be like, "Oh, 2 months and a day!", but I would not be surprised if I could tell if an IPA is a little on the old side as I used to only buy old IPAs when I first got in to craft (didn't know any better). Most people recognize that taste. You get that old Fat Tire taste.

 

I'm in NH and pretty far distribution distance wise for Ballast and Firestone and yet to have one of those that wasn't delicious. I buy at craft beer stores who have a good turnover, I assume if you buy from a low volume store, they will have some that lose their freshness.

 

Simple......Drink Them Life's To Short

 

I understand your problem and have bought old stone and lagunitas many times. I just take it for granted that I'm so close to the source that they can't be that old, (One time Costco got me for a 24 pack) so I don't check bottling dates. Honestly I simply don't buy from those breweries very often unless I know it's fresh. (Like when your bottle shop gets it in that day) but you live in a great area where you have access to beechwood, esbc, noble, etc. Along with good SD brews, which are almost always fresh with a small distro. Just maintain a good relationship with a few good shops in your area ( and/or follow on instagram or facebook) to always have fresh ipas and limited release beers.

 

Also if you live on the west coast and drink from the hundreds of breweries that are local you can easily taste if an ipa is a couple months old. At least if you are acclimated to the amount of hop forward beers out here. They start tasting a little "east coast" when they start turning. Hops die out and that otherwise minimal (otherwise craftfully )masked malt can come through and "infect" the taste. Ha. I don't know how else to put it.

 

We get Founders, Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas, Firestone Walker here in Ireland, all are at least 2 months old. But its better than the other option for me which is to not have them at all. My other option is to drink my local stuff.

 

There's a shop in my town that is just getting around to stocking Nugget Nectar. I only poke my head in there once every month or two because they rarely have anything fresh enough to be worthwhile. This is the second year in a row I've seen them selling Nugget Nectar in August... This can't be a distributor thing, can it?

 

I can't stand when I see old IPAs, or those without a bottling/canning date. Really chaps my ass, man. For instance, yesterday I went to this specialty shop in town which also sells craft beer but it isn't a store I tend to frequent though and what do I find? Old ass, stale IPAs! Stone Unapologetic, which hasn't been made in quite sometime now and several, I mean several others saying best by XX/2014, and here its 4 months from 2016! Instead of bringing this to their attention, which has been done before by several others including myself, I just left in disgust! I mean what the hell? If you sell craft beer, this should be a given, amirite?

 

Honestly I have more trouble with bars/restaurants than bottle shops. Seems like a majority of draft IPAs are over the hill. I'm visiting a friend in Columbus Ohio right now and I'm 1/3 this trip. Kind of makes me want to rethink my go-to style with meals. At bottle shops I just won't buy an IPA without a clear date that tells me it's roughly a month old or less. Only had an issue once with some undated cans sold out of a grocery store. Learned my lesson.

 

I tend to stick to the local breweries here in Austin. Hops and Grain Greenhouse IPA puts out a new batch monthly which they clearly mark on the bottom of the can the batch # and also Deep Ellum out of Dallas always has fresh product on the shelf. Stone and DFH i see regularly less than 30 days since bottling which is nice. FW and Sculpin I've seen fresh and old so you have to look closely. I was in Delaware on vacation last week and with the exception of DFH most of the IPA's I saw were old.

 

I always find these threads fun. I do love a fresh IPA, but am not such that they have to be that way. I don't purchase old IPAs, there are too many new ones every week to get something that had been sitting in the store. I do have some in the house that many would consider old, and usually try to do a side by side with a fresh one if I can. Most of the time, not much difference in the taste, especially with lower end beers.

To the OP question, I do 2 things. I have a very good relationship with my beer guy, and will let him know if I see something way old. They are normally on top of it, but sometimes it slips through. I will also just not buy it, leave it for someone else, or let it get pulled from the shelf.

I want to make a shout out to a new local brewery, whose goal is to only sell fresh beer. They make small batches, and when it is gone, it's gone. They will dump beer they feel is past it's prime. So, Virginia based Ocelot brewery, very nice!

 

If you don't like IPA's that are what you consider old, then DON'T DRINK THEM, and then shut the fuck up about it already.

There are people in other countries that are starving and without clean drinking water, and your biggest problem is finding fresh IPA's.

 

Just browsing today killing some time looking at dates on stuff. The best was a Burial Scythe under 10 days old, and Stone Enjoy By at 8 days old. Next up was Stone IPA, roughly 2 weeks old. The next few were right at 5 weeks which was Wicked Weed Pernicious, and Freak. Every other IPA was bottled in July or Aug, some were nearing the end of their best buy date, so I'm figuring they're about 6 months old. God knows how old the ones I couldn't date were. The money invested here is enormous no doubt, everyone's been paid but the retailer sitting on this stuff. Just a reminder to check your dates, even a simple beer brewed here in Nc by Oskar Blues Pinner was a July canning, so local alone isn't enough. No can or bottle date don't buy it unless you can reasonably date it some other way. This is a great store too, very vigilant and customer oriented, imagine what a sloppy store would look like.

By the way I'm one of those, an ipa freshness freak, about 30 days is my limit, and yes if it's 33 days old it's still good. I just stay away from 6 week old stuff.