I recently purchased a bottle of Perennial Sump that was labeled as "Sump 2018". Imagine my surprise when I received the bottle and saw that it was bottled on 12/2017, although the barcode had the date 1/26/2018 printed above it. So is this the 2017 or 2018 release and what exactly does the date printed above the barcode mean anyway? Also, this bottle is about a year old now and while Stouts usually have a pretty long shelf life, coffee Stouts are a bit of a different matter, I believe. It actually says "best consumed within 60 days" on the bottle, next to the bottling date. Do you reckon that this bottle is still good to drink?
Perennial Sump is often released mid winter. "Last year" (2018) it was released in January of 2018. Production/bottling of their imperial stouts often lasts several weeks, and it began in December of 2017 for that vintage. Your beer was brewed in 2017 and packaged in 2018. For this last batch, Perennial began production and was able to package enough for release before the end of 2018, although they just finished their final packaging run yesterday. Perennial does recommend drinking in 60 days, especially for a coffee stout, however, depending on how the beer was stored, this could taste fantastic. Open and enjoy it. C
So the release I have is actually 2017 then, isn't it, which means that it was labeled incorrectly where I ordered it from. I'm really torn between keeping this or sending it back... I have no idea how it was stored and I don't want to open this $30 bottle just to find out that the coffee is not really there anymore or has turned to green pepper... On the other hand, I would really like to try this. Honestly, I don't even need this to be in totally peak condition, I just want it to be good. I'm just not sure how likely that is after one year...
I've had Sump within the 60 day window and about a year old and either way I don't find it to be a very coffee-forward beer. I mean the coffee was there on the fresh one but it's more of a blends-in-with-the-fudgy-base type of mocha-like experience if that makes sense. I thought both were delicious but as with anything coffee your mileage may vary. My vote would be to just drink it.
So, it does sound like the site you ordered from took advantage of the fact that Sump is typically released right around the turn of the year. The 2018 vintage of Sump was officially released by Perennial in December of 2018 and was likely bottled in Nov/Dec of 2018: http://perennialbeer.com/sumpstout2018 That said, Sump is perfectly solid at a year old and I would second what @Number1Framer said about it never really being the kind of imperial stout that tastes like a fresh coffee bomb, even fresh. It’s more like a coffee fudge cake, with likely a little more emphasis on the “fudge cake” element after a year. If I were you, I’d be annoyed with the site you bought it from, but not worried about quality in the slightest.
The online shop where I ordered this from has gotten back to and told me that they will refund the money and I can keep the bottle anyway. While I would have prefered to get a fresh bottle, I guess I can't really complain about this outcome either, especially since I'm kinda curious how the beer has held up. I might drink it for this NBS, actually .
