Old IPAs

First of all... my apologies for missing this thread. I've been tagged several times, but somehow it fell through the cracks for me. I would certainly have responded soon had I seen it.

Now on to the meat of the comment. You're correct that we take beer freshness incredibly seriously. Over the past several years, we've published many, many papers which have been adopted as standard practice across the industry... most notably on the effect of temperature impacting stailing in beer, oxygen ingress in packaged beer (which has led to a shift in crown liner material across the industry) and last year, we imparted an initiative where in every wholesaler across the country we installed a data recording thermometer to ensure that all of our beer is being stored cold at all times in every warehouse. Keeping it fresh is paramount.

Now, on to the argument of what is fresh. We consider the bulk of our beer to be "fresh" for about 150 days--if, and only if, stored under proper conditions (cool, dry, out of UV light etc.) Our Harvest beers (no Hem, So Hem, Estate, single hopped etc) we want to see pulled after 100 days. Bigfoot, Narwhal and the Ovila series are "fresh" for 365 days or longer.
These are not simply arbitrary dates, our sensory and quality teams evaluate various packagings of beer and in blind triangle testing found that beers past these dates have a "notable difference from the initial packaged product." Which begs the question... at 151 days is Torpedo bad? Probably not, but it will not be at its prime. Hop character will have notably faded, a bit of oxidation will have crept in, but the flavor preference, as always, is in the eye (or palate, rather) of the beholder.

Nobody can say when the beer is best for you. Your palate is your palate. Personally, I don't like fresh Bigfoot. It's not for me. I find it too over-the-top with resiny bitterness. That said, I LOVE old Bigfoot. After a year I can drink it. 3 years, I really like it, and 5 years in I think it's one of the most impressive beers I have ever tried. Ken Grossman on the other hand, loves fresh Bigfoot, but can't get past the oxidative character in the old vintages. Who's right? (actually, that's a silly question...clearly, Ken's right. After all, he signs my paychecks!)

We're a whole-cone hop brewery. One of the principal reasons for that, is we find that whole cones age more gracefully than pellets or extracts. There is a downside to this too. If you taste Torpedo or Hoptimum or any of our other heavily torpedoed beers right out of the tanks...they can be pretty vegetal due to the additional plant matter in whole-cones versus pellets. After about a week or so, the vegetal flavors mellow, and the pure hop character shines through. I think Torpedo really hasn't hit its stride for about two to three weeks after bottling when the hop character begins to shine. Again, people disagree with that statement. But it's an experience unique to the individual. Every packaging of beer that leaves our brewery is evaluated by tasting panels who give it a "go or no-go" based on a true-to-type ideal of what each beer is supposed to taste like. Essentially we're vouching--making a bond with you, the consumer--saying "this beer tastes like we intended it it to taste."

As a brewery that distributes in all 50 states, we have to account for travel times, warehouse times, and lag as beer gets to retail. It's part of the game, and we don't have a lot of control over that. (this is also one of the main reasons we built our NC brewery.) We're lucky in that most of our beer mover rather quickly through retail channels. This is not the case everywhere. Because of that, we know that ensuring our beer is as fresh as we can make it, each time, every time, and knowing that it will persevere on the shelves for at least a while and still pass muster, is where the skill and the science of being a packaging brewery lives. Hopefully we've earned that trust.

-Bill

 

Bill, thank you for your thoughtful post.

You stated: “We consider the bulk of our beer to be "fresh" for about 150 days--if, and only if, stored under proper conditions (cool, dry, out of UV light etc)”. What specific temperature defines “cool” in that sentence.

If I purchase a case of Sierra Nevada beer at my local beer stores (beer distributors) they are sitting on the floor at ‘room’ temperature. How can I factor this into my purchasing decision? In other words, how long does the beer stay “fresh” under these conditions?

Cheers!

Jack

 

We consider cool below 49 degrees F (general rule of thumb is below 55) for bottled beer and below 38 F for draught.
Your question about unrefrigerated product in-stores is a good one. This is one piece of the puzzle that we really can't control. Ideally, the store would only stock enough to get through until the next delivery, and therefore wouldn't be sitting out long enough to make a difference.
Regarding freshness at room temperature-- Charlie Bamforth of UC Davis states that "for every 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees C) the rate of staling doubles." E.g. Beer stored at 68 degrees F will have a shelf life of 75 days. At 86 degrees, 3-ish weeks.
The trick is, knowing how long the beer has been at the store. The package date doesn't speak to that... it may be 100 days old before it gets to the retailer and will be fine because it has been cold, or it may be 10 days old an in the store warm for three weeks.
We encourage retailers to keep our beer cold whenever possible but this isn't always the case. When you can, buy beer from the fridge that is in-code. Chances are you'll be all right.

Hope this helps.

-Bill

 

Bill,

Thank you for your reply.

As you astutely pointed out: “The trick is, knowing how long the beer has been at the store.” I do not know of any retailer that ‘tracks’ when a given case of beer arrives at their store. It also must be remembered that every retailer has a ‘conflict of interest’ in stating something that will sell the product they have on hand. It would be an atypical retailer that would say something like; yeah, that case has been sitting there for months vs. a more beneficial reply (beneficial to the retailer) of: yeah, I just received that case earlier this week.

I am familiar with the Arrhenius' equation but the missing piece of information I needed was your response of 49 degrees F to provide a baseline. Given that information it would seem to me that I will need to seek out cases of Sierra Nevada that are less than 2 months old from my retailers. Hopefully once your East Coast brewery comes on line that will be more feasible for me.

I want to thank you once again for being a Beer Advocate and providing open and honest communications.

Cheers to you sir!

P.S. I hope that you and your family have a happy Memorial Day weekend.

 

for those of us following along at home, does sierra nevada have any info about canning, the amount of oxygen that's inside at the start, etc? i would guess you guys use all top of the line, but may as well ask. the stats and such pushed out earlier in the thread were real "enhance your learning!" posts for me.

 

I had an Avery Maharaja late October, or November last year, Release batch #17. It was old, sat for a few months, but nonetheless, I thought it was one of the best, if not the best DIPA's I'd ever had, balanced, malt presence. peppery,
just a great beer.

-Then I had this years newest batch, in March...
not so much...
I thought was waaaay too hoppy..

Maybe it's just what I like in a DIPA, hint of alcohol warmth, a malt balance, "mangopinappleapricot" flavor, no overwhelming bitterness.

I actually even wrote Avery and asked if they had changed the formula because I wasn't liking it as much,
they said I must have had an old bottle and that it must have lost some of it's hop presence...
I've heard some other folks say that it tasted different as well...

 

a lot of older beers (like, brands that have been around awhile) are better with some time (at least for some drinkers). for IPAs, i generally like the current craze of "hop the shit out of it!" but when the alcohol and the malt backbone or whatever give certain great flavors already, a beer can (at least for me) be better served by a more subdued hop presence. also varies by mood for me.

anyway, my point is that, especially for beers not made in california, a lot (but certainly not all) of the higher ABV IPAs that are on the market and have been since before 2006 and such (arbitrary year) stand up to time pretty well.

 

Thought this might be an entertaining thread to insert the following (recent) quote from Firestone Walker's very own David Walker, re: Union Jack freshness.

Also, the Venice FW location is gonna be killer.

http://www.cabrewmasters.com/news/firestone-walkers-lion-visits-new-venice-beach-den-cans/

 

I think AB ought to just buy up old IPAs and dump them into the "Bud Light" tank. Nobody would notice.

 

In my opinion the argument that they are bad after a couple of weeks is complete crap. If you keep them cold in the fridge they are not going to go bad. Obviously this is just an opinion and not the law but every beer is different. Hell i like 6mo-1year old 90min a hell of alot more than fresh....gasp!

 

John Kimmich likes his Heady Topper with about 10 weeks on it.

 

I wish I could find 45 day old Union Jack vs. the many months old product I see at my local retailers.

Cheers!

 

Lots of old stuff on shelves all over the place. Maybe prominent bottled/canned on dates and good by dates would help. This no date or crazy coded dating crap helps none for those of us trying to buy fresh beer. I'd like a simple stamped date, how hard is that?
Pat

 

I think the real problem is that even with easily understandable date codes, you have no idea how long the product has been unrefrigerated. From what sierranevadabill said above, if the temp is 68 degrees, the rate of staling has doubled. So if you run across a 12-pack of Torpedo sitting on the (unrefrigerated) shelf at your local bottle store, and it has a date of early December, you can't apply the four month rule of thumb. For all you know, it's been sitting on that shelf or in the unrefrigerated store room of the bottle shop since it was delivered and is about to turn or already has.

 

My sister has Pliny and Blind Pig bottles from 2013 for some reason. I had one of each last year... it's NOT good.
She still has some...

 

This is an area where it's hard to draw and general rules except, in my experience, to drink the beer earlier rather than later and date coding systems are usually your friend. All things equal, 2-3 months into a 12 month freshness window (for the typical import) is a good bet, and a couple of months or so for the typical craft IPA, maybe 3-4. 6-9 months for imports I find often disappointing. Anything like more than 3-4 months for local crafts ditto but not always. There are so many variables: not everyone packages with the same care, storage conditions vary as many point out here, beers are hopped differently. Some IPA is hopped strong in the body and others more so in the aroma and the latter won't last as long in my experience - these benefit from fresh drinking obviously but the others can go a good distance.

I tend to agree with the comment Ken Grossman made about oxidized flavour and I find a lot of brewers who came from a home brewing background share that view. Many years ago, I read an interview with a former ex-home brewer who ran a craft operation in Michigan, an early one in the 80's. He said, "I like it best off the line". I tend to agree with that even for styles made to last a year or more like Imperial Stout and barley wine. On the other hand, I once recall a spiced wheat beer from Quebec, bottle-conditioned, that kept its quality for a year despite being stored at a typical room temperature. Its taste never changed! (It was from Cheval Blanc IIRC).

Most SN beers I've had are very stable and kept their quality, often, well into a year from packaging.

It depends, so many variables.. But in general, these are exceptions in my experience and fresher is better for IPA and other styles.

 

I accidently bought a bottle of Founders Double Trouble that was six months beyond the "best by" or drink by date... Never making that mistake again!

Cracked it open yesterday and took one sip... Drain pour. It was terrible.

 

NoDa HDR was originally canned by a mobile canner a year or so ago, it was so successful they have their own internal canning line now and sell out every week. You have to start somewhere, and their business model is very successful. i have no prejudice, if the beer is good it will sell, if they sell enough then they can expand their capabilities.

 

To go along with the 8 month old Double Jack I see when I visit my son.

 

And you are not wrong (opinions can't be wrong)... but they are different, otherwise you would not have an opinion on whether it's better after 6-12 months VS fresh. BA stouts, etc are frequently held for time because people like the way the flavors develop over time. Similarly, many people want the IPA to be as close to the initial flavor profile as possible, because the volatiles that change over time are the factor that is highly sought by the hop-heads.

I also don't "hate" aged IPAs. But they are not the same as fresh, either. I have had HopSlam, Zombie Dust, Oracle, Double Trouble all with 6+ months on them, and they aren't bad, but they aren't the same either.

For me its

• IPA = Fresh and COLD.
• Stout/BW/Wee Heavy = aged and at 50°...

just my...2 cents.