Old IPAs - What to do about this problem?

Bill,

Thank you once again for your contributions to BA!

You bring up an excellent point re: Kolsch:

“It was a shadow of the beer it was when fresh, but in a very different way than a hop-bomb IPA would be. The malt flavor was still intact and everything was technically still in spec, but the balance was off and the beer tasted...muddled, I guess.”

It is popular on BA to discuss a beer going stale by stating that cardboard (or other flavors like sherry, etc.,) develop.

In a recent issue of Zymurgy Gordon Strong discussed old beer/staling/oxidation:

“Old beer is simply stale and dull with muted flavors. … Flavor intensity decays and the balance might change as different components degrade at varying rates.”

“Many breweries misidentify oxidation because they are expecting wet cardboard, sherry or paper flavors. That’s a specific kind of oxidation but not the most common. Oxidized beers generally have a dullness of flavor…”

Cheers!

 

I would be willing to bet that 95% of the people on here couldn't tell the difference between a fresh IPA and a 2 month old IPA.

 

Hey, I was being sincere. My attitude towards you, and this topic, has become much like a two-month-old IPA: the bitterness has faded.

 

I hear ya. I'm not much of a Sculpin fan either but there's a difference between not being impressed with a beer and stating that a beer is awful because it's two months old. I wont buy Sculpin if its available but if someone handed one to me, I wouldn't drain pour it either.

 

You should try Grapefruit Sculpin. It's amazing.

 

Only the day it's bottled. Downhill on day 2.

 

If only the people that don't mind 2 month old IPA's would start drinking a lot more then everybody would be happy.

 

OP is lucky to only have 2 month old IPA's in CA.

The supermarket by me is still selling Ruination 1.0 for $14.99 a four pack. I don't think that has even been brewed since 11/2014.

Hops receding into the malt is definitely a big pet peeve of mine. Call me neurotic or OCD or whatever, but once you take the plunge into homebrewing and dry hopping IPA's there really is no turning back .

 

I refrained from expressing the sentiment that California residents, such as myself, are very fortunate when it comes to enjoying fresh IPAs, lest I be labeled an elitist, etc. However, it really is true. I have become accustomed to seeing IPAs from Stone, Ballast Point, Sierra Nevada, Anchor, Russian River, etc., hit the shelves within one to two weeks after bottling/canning. Heck, I've never snagged a Kern River Just Outstanding IPA that wasn't less than a week old. I suppose that my vociferous aversion to "two-month-old" IPAs is a result of how frequently I am afforded the opportunity to enjoy very fresh hoppy beer. I apologize if my sentiment that IPAs over 40-days-old are unappealing to me, but my bar has been set very high. Don't get me wrong, there are a plethora of beers from the Midwest and East Coast that we don't get in California that I would give my right eyeball for.

 

Refrigeration is the key here. Two month old IPA kept in a refrigerated unit is fine. Canned is even better. It suffers almost no drop off. It's been tested, but I can't recall where I saw it. Stuff on store shelves...I pretty much won't buy IPAs from store shelves anymore.

John Kimmich says Heady Topper peaks at around ten weeks, and I tend to agree with him. It is not as good the first week or two. It's also amazingly good even six months out if refrigerated. He does say the Alchemist puts in a lot of effort to purge O2 in the canning process. I think that makes a difference.

 

Define "fresh". I bet most could tell the difference between a week old (or less) IPA and a two month IPA.

 

But the week old one might not be better. For example, I don't really care for brand spanking new, two day old Trillium Congress Street. It's too vegetal. I had the same issue with Fiddlehead Mastermind. How quickly are these brewers canning/bottling these beers? That may be a factor as well.

I try to keep a mental note of what beers seem to fade fastest and which ones hold up. As @sierranevadabill indicated, not every brewer puts the same attention into the canning/bottling process to purge O2. Then you have transit variations, storage variations at wholesale, storage variations at retail. I have not noticed SNPA falling off at 2 months (and it is always stocked refrigerated unlike some brands).

One of the reasons I enjoy Be Hoppy so much may be because it is (a) very good even when very fresh and (b) it goes from brewery to my local shop in under 48 hours, and then sells out in under 48 hours. I believe it is refrigerated the whole way as well.

 

I don't think an IPA that fresh is necessarily better either, but I think most could tell the difference between a few days old IPA and a two month old IPA. I had Hill Farmstead Double Citra directly at the brewery, I took a growler home and after a week it turned from somewhat unpleasant (very abrasive) to sublime.

Be Hoppy is lovely in a can...however it seems very mediocre on tap to me. I wonder how old some of these kegs are, I bet they turn over much slower than the cans do at the stores. And I've had Be Hoppy on tap at different locations, so it wasn't simply one bad tap line.

 

Has anyone said drink faster/more?

 

I avoid the coolers beer , go into the walk in cooler at my local store and pick through the pallets off the fresh truck. Got 2 weeks old Jai alai many times and Westbrook when there are 3 month + on the shelf in front.

 

Anyone ever done this taste test of say, 2 week old beer and 2 month old beer and if so, how did you manage to get the same beer 2 weeks old and 2 months old??

 

I don't think my stores let customers access a walk in cooler of that sort with fresher beer.

 

It's like where all the bombers are at this store so I have reason to be in there

 

I did not do exactly as you have stated but I previously posted that I purchased a case of Victory Dirtwolf that was 2 weeks old and over a period of a few months (3 months) I drank that beer. I noticed that for Dirtwolf at the 2 month mark the hop aroma had very noticeably diminish. By the 3 month mark both the hop aroma and hop flavor were greatly diminished.

For this exercise I stored the beer cool in my basement. I would periodically take bottles out, refrigerate them for a day or so and then drink them.

Cheers!

 

Please send me your recipe and process. I'm finding juicy, aromatic DIPA to be a very difficult (and expensive) style to produce.