Reporting Old Beer

Sounds like the owner is stuck in the middle of this, and may have no leverage on the distributor they depend on. If they pressure the distributor, it could make it difficult to get anything good and/or the owner may get stuck with some of the cost of returning beer. Sad to say but you and others, through not purchasing old beer, need to put pressure on the owner to stand up to the distributor. The owner does have the ability to flush out the old beer at cost or below by putting it out in a clearance area - but it sounds like they may not be engaging that practice. They need to treat shelf space as valuable real estate filled only with marketable product - otherwise they will not survive as a beer shop. Maybe they make most of their money on fast-moving macro, liquor, and wine and can afford to leave the beer aging.

This reminds me of a magazine stand I used to frequent back in the 90's. I went there for a monthly magazine which was entirely computer parts ads, so it needed to be current. The stand refused to put out a new issue of any magazine until the previous issues sold, ensuring that anything time-sensitive was useless. The stand didn't last long since their magazines were largely out of date.

 

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Maybe next time your are in and owner isn't busy, let him know that certain beers aren't moving off his shelf well, explain the best by date issue and hoppy beers. Let him know he is carrying world class IPAs and would be great for him to keep carrying them if possible but see if the distributor is willing to give him less quantity than in the past to ensure the product moves off the shelves before best by dates. Most likely the distributor will require a certain larger quantity, but its worth asking. Anything to promote better beer for little required effort seems worth doing IMO.

 

About a year ago I purchased a case of DFH Tweason'ale for my wife who can only drink gluten free beer. As soon as I opened the case I noticed the bottle-on date on the bottles and they were a year old. I immediately took the case back to the distributor for a full refund and sent an e-mail to DFH to let them know which distributor was selling their beer out of date. I got two e-mails back from DFH, one from someone in marketing, and one from their regional sales rep, both apologizing for the incident. Not sure if they ever followed up with the distributor, but I was satisfied with DFH's prompt response. And I don't shop at that beer store anymore.

 

If all else fails you can adopt a PA solution to the problem.

Here in PA, until fairly recently, most beer was sold by the case only. So you and your buddies order beer by the case but tell the retailer, in advance, that your purchase is conditional upon the beer being fresh (i.e., you'll not purchase it if not fresh). Then the retailer will have a motivation to accept delivery only on fresh beer with minimal handling involved and the distributor will have a motivation to ship him only fresh beer if he refuses to accept delivery on old beer. (Also keep in mind that he may actually have to order a certain total number of cases from the distributor to even get a shipment at all.)

You can get around not wanting to buy a full case each at one time by agreeing in advance that each person will order a case of a different beer and then you all will swop bottles until each has a mixed variety case.

One caution however, is to not have any money change hands between you and your biddies AFTER the purchases have been made from the beer store. (Most if not all states and the Federal Gvt have laws in place that require you have a license to sell beer to receive money from others for that beer. Making a profit or not is irrelevant.)

 

I feel your pain OP. One decent shop for hundreds of miles in my area and things can sit for a long time. I am only able to get in about once every month or two and some beers seem not to have moved at all in that time. The HEB where I grocery shop puts out lots of seasonals and some locals, so I can get some reasonably fresh there.

 

@Hayden34, my advice to you and your buddies: start homebrewing and form a homebrew club.

No beer is fresher than homebrew!!

Cheers!

 

Sorry I didn't read your original post clearly. It seems strange that this store is the best craft beer spot in the area and the distributor is unloading old beer to this particular store. So the real Scooby Doo mystery is what stores in this distribution area are getting the fresh craft beer? That would be a tough nut to crack but would be interesting to find out.

 

Seems like an ownership issue. If the distributor shows up with old beer you don't sign for it and make them haul it back. Then he needs to get with his sales rep. Being Craft is not paying his bills he's probably doing neither. You could point out to him every sixer of old beer will probably sit there forever until it expires and then it's a net loss for him, let him do the math. No distributor is pushing out past dated Enjoy Bys, and year old Sucks. It's obvious he hasn't a clue how to present craft to his customers.

 

The solution is simple: Move.

 

If ony it were true than no distributor pushes out old cases.

On the other hand if it weren't the case that it happens I'd not have gotten a free case of beer from a particular wholesale distributer when I ordered a case of a particular APA from my retailer that showed up being from the previous year's bottling.

(In defense of my retailer the date coding on the bottle was one of the systems that required a decoder ring. Otherwise he's pretty good about not accepting delivery on old beer.)

 

What I'd do if I was you is to get together with my beer buds and take turns making a beer run for the group. This was everything would be shared, and I'd tell the local guy your done until he gets it right. He may or may not care, but it solves your problem. Buy a mixed case at a time of whatever is around.

 

I'm sure it's done, there's always one of those. But any reputable and successful business wouldn't be run that way. Still an ownership problem if the above is true, he needs to know what he's buying and not accept old product. Could be he's a dumping ground for that particular sales rep to move old shit being the owner doesn't seem to care either way. So he either needs to do it right or just carry AAL stuff. Another case for dating all bottles and cans, I don't buy stuff you need a decoder ring to figure out.