Old IPAs - What to do about this problem?

Your lucky. IPA distribution in my areas pretty much starts at about 4-5 weeks old if your lucky. Perhaps Flying Dog (local) you get within 2 weeks of bottle date of their single hop 10% ABV series. Average shelf IPAs are in the 8-12 week range with quite a lot in the 3-6 month range. A few turds 6+ mo.

 

Your shelf is much better than mine. I have to look hard for anything under 2 months old.

 

This is the not so secret, dirty little secret of craft beer. I don't know how it is economically feasible for all these beers to be sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Someone is paying for it, likely us, whether you buy those beers or not the cost of these unwanted beers is being factored into the cost of all beer.

 

That doesn't sound too bad - I just cracked open a Pernicious from 8/08 that got lost in my fridge, and there was essentially no drop-off - tasted just as fresh, tropical, and dank as the week-old bottles I had. So I wouldn't worry about that at all. Oskar Blues cans stay fresh for quite a while too.

 

This is what happens when you try to capitalize off trying to predict what your customers are going to buy.like all the pumpkin beers comming out that no one is buying. You will see pumpkin four packs for 18.99 shelf turding far into next year in my stores I frequent.

 

If i found some August stuff i wouldn't be too bothered but beyond that I would be picky. The slow movers are victims of an overpopulated IPA aisle for sure, and it's not going to get better any sooner since every up and comer puts out at least 2 or 3 IPAs.

Sadness? Ya, that would be the dusty IPAs at TW. Just a hop graveyard.

 

This may be a dumb question, but why don't bottle shops stock less ipas? As in quantity of each, so for example if they get enjoy by let's say six cases, and they only sell 3. The next time wouldn't it be a good idea to only buy 4? Instead of trying to sell expired beer....

 

This is a small mom and pop store, not a TW, that beer that sits forever costs them money. I get Pernicious is still a great beer, but it's 5 weeks old now and it's stacked waist high. How old will it be before its all gone and replaced by fresher stock? And guys who don't know dates might pick up the 9 month old GKnight and just says it sucks, especially for the money. And again the retailer takes it in the shorts, they won't buy that beer again. It's a compounding problem.

 

My limit on IPAs is 60 days, send me all the ones over your 30 day limit. I won't complain.

 

Think of the variety available. It's not realistic to think you won't have items sitting for that long in your typical store. Imagine how rough us country bumpkins have it - I'm lucky to find anything younger than several months.

 

That's probably the case everywhere. I can go to stores in my area with one year old IPA/IIPAs sitting on the shelves. Some IPAs in my area hit distribution at 6-8 weeks. I bought an old IPA once and compared it with a fresher one and there is a huge noticeable difference, so I also try to purchase as fresh as possible.

 

Yeah, a distributors best friend... a store who buys one case at a time.....puts you at the back of the line !!

Looking for Double Dose? Better look at a shop that buys big

 

Same here, I live in Mexico (right in the border with California) and we get some american stuff brought here. We recently started getting Green Flash and Coronado, with very good best by dates, but we also get Sierra Nevada with laughable dates (Torpedos bottled on February for example). I have no idea why we get some brands that are fairly fresh and others very old.

Another problem is that at least 80-90% of mexican breweries don't date their bottles. I have no problem with local stuff because it has a good rotation, but stuff coming from other states in Mexico you start finding some problems when you try them, and there is no way to know.

 

Not to mention that this would fail to accomplish anything meaningful. @Catracho5 said

and that's something that happens where I'm at too. Not much you can do about it as a retailer when your distributor is just getting it's hands on something several months too late. The issue is brewers failing to achieve balance between their production and their distribution.

 

Yeah, I always wonder from the brewer to distributor to retail store, where the root cause of the old shelf beer problem arises. For some reason I'm guessing the distributor is the guilty party in the 3 tier equation most of the time. I'm sure stores would prefer to only offer the best freshest product to consumers, and I seriously doubt the brewers are ok with unloading large quantities of beer into retail stores that get old/stale and give their beer a bad reputation. I have a hunch retailers are forced to take what distributors wheel and deal to them in bigger than wanted quantities, then are forced to find creative ways to unload old beer onto unsuspecting buyers (because they don't want to/cant send back).

 

I'm drinking a fresh Enjoy By right now, and IMO Pernicious is a much better IPA, doesn't make this one bad though. High jacked my own thread there. Fresh Pernicious is really a great beer.

 

There's a gourmet market by my job has a fairly decent selection of beer, somehow (somehow, b/c I know the clientele and they're not drinking craft beer).

I found Founders Wet Harvest today; by the time I got within 3 feet of it I could see the layer of dust. "Bottle date 9/30/2014."

 

IN Australian most American made IPA's are 4-6 months old at best, and around $10 a bottle/can

 

The market is over saturated with APA/IPA/DIPAs. I think that's the main reason.

 

Things aren't perfect, but it seems to have come a long way in the past 5 years. Hopefully the next phase will include exclusively storing them cold so that a 3-4 month old IPA is a viable option to the purchaser.