I recently looked at some Short's beers (Superfluid, Treefer Madness) and could not find the package date on the bottles or the six-pack container. Does anyone know if/where the package date is on Short's products? There are some stores that are notorious for putting old beer on shelves, not just Short's obviously. Thanks for the info.
it at least used to be on the bottle around or just below the neck area, and it is extremely difficult (to me at least) to see
I agree that Shorts beers are dated on the bottle's neck/shoulder area, but the last two beers that I looked at didn't have a date that I could see. But don't use your statement as a general rule for all beers. It's just the hoppy beers that are date sensitive.
But it is the distributors - and, in self-distribution states, also the brewers - who supply the beer to the retailers and are charged with maintaining freshness of the stock. Retailers can only put the beer they're sold on their shelves and, sadly, too often have a hard time getting the wholesalers to exchange or return the old stock. Sure, if you like stale beer. Even the ~10 IBU beers from MC and AB, pasteurized or sterile-filled on the breweries' state-of-the-art canning/bottling lines have brewery-mandated shelf life periods of about 4 months (120 days for AB, 17 weeks for MC).
A brewery like Short's that floods the market with new beers should have package dates that are easy to see. Especially since they make such a big deal about how they get "PsychedelicCat Grass" from the fermenters to store shelves in under 24 hours -- an obvious statement that freshness is important, at least for certain styles of beer.
