Outdated beer

Best By dates don't help much , is that a 6 month window, 3, 12, kinda arbitrary. I usually assume they mean 6 months though.

 

Two weeks ago I unknowingly bought a six pack of nearly a year old Anchor Liberty Ale and it was just fine. I still have 1 left, waiting to drink it on March 26th, when it will be officially one year old.

 

Brooklyn Oktoberfest on sale for $2.99/6-pack today. Means it would gave been brewed a year ago. I would think the folks at Brooklyn would want this practice stopped so people don't think their beer is skunky crap (which it is not!).

 

So much this.
We make signs and displays. We talk to distributors and brewers. We drop prices and throw out, even buy beer that is "too old" (ie: 3 days after bottled on for IPA's) but sometimes beer gets left on the shelf, or we cant afford to toss everything. But it won't hurt you. And plenty of people still enjoy these beers. I had a reds rye PA from august last month, heavy malt, not gross.

 

To be clear, most consumers = no-one on this website

And I agree with you about 90 day BBD's as we are constantly running up against Stone's dates.

 

Well for future reference I would not open the bottle if you think you might return the beer.

 

UPDATE: I drank this Celebration last night (bottle date was from October).

Aroma was a bit lacking from what a fresh celebration is like. And maybe, the hop flavor was a bit more muted than fresh.

But overall, still a great beer. Would I intentionally age one? Nah. Would a drink another 5-month-old bottle? yes.

 

Buyer beware. You are the consumer, buy wisely.

 

Recently I was at a local liquor store (Yankee Spirits, in Attleboro, MA). Yankee has three, maybe four stores (I think) across Mass, so they aren't your corner mom and pop, but they definitely aren't some big chain. In any event, whenever I go to Yankee I can't help but marvel at the volume of beer that they have for sale. They have an extremely wide selection, which is great. But they also just have lots of everything, like stacks and stacks of cases. In my last trip to Yankee I noticed what, at a quick glance, looked to be at least 20 cases of Long Trail Hibernator (their winter seasonal). The price was marked down greatly, $3 for a six pack.

I have some questions surrounding this:

1.) Do you see this happen at your local shops? If so, with what kinds/brands of beer?
2.) What eventually happens to this beer? Let's say that a few folks are going to buy it because it's cheap and a few people that really love Hibernator are going to grab a case or two, there's still going to be ample left over. What happens to it? Is it thrown out? Do folks harvest the glass out of them for recycling purposes?
3.) Is this unavoidable? I'm assuming that most businesses want to buy the exact amount of beer from the brewery that they are going to sell, so that they aren't left with any excess. I would also assume that doing such, is impossible. So when one buys a product from a brewery they are most likely either buying less than what they can sell or more. Is there a way to make it so that less beer is wasted (assuming it is being tossed away, which it may not be AND assuming that people actually care about wasted beer, which they may not).
4.) What is the freshness of the other beers in stores that buy in such mass quantities. While Yankee is still a solid store, I tend to notice that much of their selection is a tad on the older side. Do you think "volume businesses" inherently have difficulty with this? Is there a way for businesses to buy large quantities of one brew and small quantities of another, if they are coming from the same distributor?

I'm not sure how I feel about all this and I'm not really sure why this has piqued my interest. I guess I am just generally curious.

Thoughts from those in the craft business would be appreciated....

 

Man I would buy the shit out of that for $3 a 6 pack

 

Well I shop at the same Yankee as you (as well as other locations). I do notice a lot of the beer they have on the shelves is out dated. This happens everywhere, especially a large chain store like this one. The inventory is massive. I just always watch the dates on bottles and I also specifically request hold for a special beer or beers that I know are being released.

I see the old beer often and I have mentioned it to Yankee manager before and they didnt seem to have much of a response other than "we try to go through any old beer and remove it" which I never see.

Not sure if that helps your questions but just my input on that situation.

Cheers!

 

I see this happening, though not a lot in my area. Craft beer culture is booming here in Louisville. It gets harder and harder all the time to get ahold of things that I want before they are cleaned off the shelves. I am not saying there is NO beer wated here, but it is slim to none.

 

Great questions. People here prefer local beer and I've seen some solid IPAs from other states on the shelves with "drink by" dates over a year ago. It's a shame.

I saw this yesterday with Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin and Mamma Mia Pizza Beer. Who authorizes the purchase of 30 cases of Pizza Beer?

 

What are the "legal requirements" for brewers' dating coding their beer? In the US, there is no Federal level TTB provision that mandates a "use/best by" or "expiration" (as you call it) code, and no state requires one from anything I've ever read here on the forums, or elsewhere.

If there were, why do so many breweries continue to have no coding of any kind on their bottles? And why would so many other brewers use only a bottling date? And why would the shelf life periods used by those brewers that do use a "Best by" system vary so much (from 35 days up to many years) if it was mandated by law, rather than the choice of the brewer, based on their knowledge of their product, its typical shipping and storage conditions and their own preferences for what they feel is a "fresh" product?

 

Actually Jesskidden is absolutely correct. There are *no* legal requirements regarding code dates on beer at either the Federal or the State level. In fact, with the exception of infant formula, even food dating is also not generally required at the Federal level. The US has no uniform system for dating and only about 20 or so states require dating on some food items, and that is usually in place because some out of code foods will make you ill.

So any dating on alcoholic beverages, which are not a food product, is strictly voluntary on the part of the producer, and beer being "plenty good" for a "good long time" depends very much on your personal tastes. Just because long-out-of-code beer won't make you sick if you drink it, that doesn't mean it’s a good or pleasant experience.

 

My friend and I call it the "Beer Quest!"

...It's the never ending search for fresh IPA's. A lot of friends know about my passion for craft beer and I find myself constantly explaining how freshness is key to IPA's. It's lead me to this constant search for the freshest IPA's I can find. Some nights I just throw my hands up and shake my head in utter disgust at what I find.

I guess my question to all you is... Is anyone else going absolutely mad constantly looking for fresh IPA's.

 

I don't drink an IPA unless it's straight out of a keg at the brewery where it was made.

There's no sense in drinking an IPA that's been in a bottle. By the time it's put in and the cap is put on, all of the hops just go to hell.

 

I am going mad constantly reading about how IPA's have to be 37 minutes old, otherwise they are malt turds.

 

You can't be serious.

 

Sarcasm aside -- so Ken Grossman doesn't know what he's talking about, and his brewery's research is wrong?

"Research at Sierra Nevada Brewing has determined the levels of the compounds that produce those floral, spicy, etc. aromas that have made highly hopped beers so popular drop dramatically the first three days after bottling. They migrate from the liquid to the head space to the liner of the bottle cap, and perhaps eventually into the atmosphere. After three days an “average” IPA might contain the same level of myrcene, for instance, as a pale ale immediately after bottling. How fast the aroma continues to fade in the following weeks depends on many factors, including storage temperature and the amount beer is agitated in shipping.”

--- http://appellationbeer.com/blog/drink-them-while-they-are-fresh/​

I'm constantly thinking about beer. Trying to figure out how to improve our product has driven me from Day One. Beer starts to degrade the moment it leaves the brewery. Heat, light, and oxygen can all damage the flavor. I'm always trying to think of ways we can better control that."

--- Ken Grossman, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.​