Stone Brewing Outdated Variety Packs Deception

First of all that label problem doesn't exist around here, so I suggest that it is happening at your local retailer or the distributor who supplies them (which would also mean your retailer isn't screening their orders before accepting them). Second, if you check the Stone website they have a place where you can report the out of code beer, etc. and they will alert their local sales rep to take action.

 

Maybe @StoneBrewingCo can provide some input here?

Cheers!

 

@hophugger, you probably already know this but Stone uses a best by duration of 90 days for their hoppy beers (e.g., Stone IPA). Those beers in your pack that were bottled in Feb. are quickly approaching that 90 day 'limit'.

Cheers!

 

Wow! Lots of exclamation points there.

I sense your frustration!!

Cheers!

 

I used to work at a distributor which will go un-named. When we had beer that was on the fence we'd take a piece of packing tape, cover the date, and then rip it off, leaving a bit, but mostly obscuring the information.

My guess is they're just being put on the shelf now because the distributor that supplies your shop screwed up. Bring it to their attention! It might be that the distributor they're buying from is screwing them!

 

Better than the founders mix pack I bought. Case said packed on xx( don't remember exact date)February. Great only a few weeks old. Get home and the beer was put in the case xx feb but bottled well before that. The pale ale was horrible. Never heard back from founders on this issue.

Enjoy

 

It could be that the retailer you are going to doesn't care enough about checking dates. Could also be the distributor short-coding your retailer. My store keeps getting screwed over with short-codes for 2 specific breweries. It's happened so much that we are going to start cutting skews and shorten our orders from that distributor.

 

I feel like fresh beer is the name of the game now. Just look at all these breweries doing releases every week. I think its hard for the bigger company like Stone to compete with the fresh can IPA weekly releases. I feel like one of the things that slows avaliblitity down is the way some beers are distributed through the county. I have heard it's better to drink KBS fresh, well I live in Delaware and we still haven't seen it here yet, so will it be fresh?, probely not as fresh as it was during KBS days but I'm still willing to buy it, because that as fresh as I'm going to get it. That's just my two cents

 

Ahhh, variety cases are a different matter that unfortunately have their own issues. In working for a small brewer that produced variety packs we were at the mercy of the production schedule - we were not packaging every beer every week, and for the slowest selling brad at one point it was just bottled once a month, but that beer went into the variety pack so it was almost always a little bit old. If, by chance, it worked out that that beer was fresh, it just meant that the last beer to go into the case was old because of the pattern that putting together the variety cases was. I thought Founders was bigger than that, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

Never had this issue with a stone product, I wish other breweries dated their packaging as clearly as Stone. Sounds like a distributor or shop issue

 

Sorry to see this. As some of the other posters in this thread have mentioned, we pride ourselves on making freshness a priority with our beers. I can assure you we would never intentionally obscure the date on the box. After all, if we wanted to keep that information unknown, we wouldn't print it on the box at all.

We would really appreciate it if you could give us more information about where you are seeing this here: bit.ly/StoneContact Anytime you find past-date Stone beer on shelves, we encourage anyone and everyone to let us know at that link so we can take action ASAP.

Once again, sorry for your experience, and we look forward to getting more info so we can investigate.

-David P
Stone Brewing Social Media Coordinator

 

Good response from Stone, glad to see somebody's paying attention.

 

I've never had issues with Stone mix pack dates in my area. I know they are best by the date on the box. I also appreciate the 90 days best by on the box is from the earliest bottled beer in the box and not the latest.

 

Am I reading correctly that you've recently purchased two Stone variety packs with a May date? It's only May 9th. It's difficult to imagine there would have been enough time for the packs to be packaged, shipped to the store, and purchased all within the past nine days, so your assumption that it is the packaging date listed on the box may be incorrect.

As @jageraholic posted above, if the date on the box is a best by date 90 days from the bottling date, that would match up with the February bottling dates. Stone goes above and beyond when it comes to ensuring freshness and I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt here.

 

Just to confirm, this is a variety pack you are discussing?

Cheers!

 

KBS lasts well ,only the coffee fades. I did not notice a big coffee presence this year like I did in 2016.