I loves me some Torpedo as a daily drinker and try to keep some around all the time. It's a good month in my area as both the big corporate seller (who sells in their big liquor store and also through some supermarkets with shared ownership) and a smaller, locally owned outfit had SN 12-packs on sale for $12.98. I happened to be in one of the supermarkets earlier this month and was out of cheap beer so I grabbed a 12-pack there dated 2/5/12. I knew it wasn't the freshest thing going, but Torpedo holds up pretty well and it wasn't going to last long, anyway. I was in the neighborhood of the mom and pop place today and picked up a 12-pack dated 5/4/12. Much better freshness-wise, but I noticed when loading them into the fridge that the per-bottle Julian dating on the label seems to have disappeared. Has anyone else noticed this? It is just stuff in 12-packs (which to be fair are dated outside), or are 6-packs affected as well?
I've been debating starting this very thread and am (I hate to admit this BUT) dissapointed in SN for doing this. IMHO, this is by no means accident and intentional. I could be wrong and openly admit that. Yes...BTW I will continue to purchase SN but why else would this be the case? For what it's worth, I'm still happier purchasing 3 & 1/2 month old Ruthless over fresh Torpedo for $12.97 per 12-pack at Safeway...don't care if that kills all credibility of this post, I prefer what I prefer fellow BA's. Cheers!
Where might that be? I've examined one pretty closely, and don't see it. Definitely not on the small paper label on the neck.
Still Julian, on the glass neck in yellow, not on the paper label. I have Torpedo, Summer and Pale with the reading (all from 12 packs).
Well, then the jet printer was down when my 12 of Torpedo went through, because I've checked them all. No biggie, I usually buy in 12s anyway.
I've noticed this from other breweries lately too. Smuttynose now has dating on the bottleneck instead of the label. Victory used to have a best by date on the lower left corner of the label but I was looking at 6-packs of Hop Devil and didn't see the date on any of them. I couldn't locate any kind of dating on the bottle at all. Does anyone know if Victory no longer puts dating on their bottles?
I just noticed last night that the Torpedo in my refrigerator has the date on the label (as usual), and the date printed on the neck of the bottle. I figured that maybe they were preparing to remove the date from the label.
I happen to be drinking a SN Summerfest right now. The neck reads 2067210:42 the label reads 206721204. The last four digits are the time, expressed in military time. So there is a time discrepancy of an hour and twenty two minutes. Was my beer lost in a warp?
Missed or spaced on your earlier thread, raffels. I do not claim the world's most refined palate. I'm a normal guy who just likes to drink beer. Given that, I happened to have Torpedo bottled on Feb 5 and May 4 sitting right here, so I chilled them identically and set 'em up side to side. It wasn't double blind (I knew which was which), but for me any difference between the two was vanishingly small. There was a tiny bit better aroma from the fresher batch, maybe, but for me little or no difference in taste. This is not to downplay the importance of freshness in IPAs or beer in general, but on this basis I wouldn't be scared of 90 day old stuff from a big commercial brewer like SN or Lagunitas. That said, I passed on the Sucks I saw in a store last week - I'll wait until this year's batch.
I'm with you. I think there is way too much emphasis placed on the to the minute freshness of certain beers.
No offense intended whatsoever. Actually, I agree that Torpedo with 2 months or so on it doesn't really suffer the effects all that bad. Heck, if you look at what gets distributed in WVa at the grocery store level, it's the cream of the crop. Thankfully I can be in VA,MD, or PA in less than 30 minutes.
Actually that's not even single-blind. Nice to see another Mtn State BA, few and far between. Actually things are getting much MUCH better my friend. Here's a thread about lees than 2-week old Hoptimum in the hinterlands. http://beeradvocate.com/community/t...is-doing-a-great-job-with-distribution.14277/
