Toppling Goliath comes to NY!

I had it over the weekend as well once from Clinton Gourmet for ~$7 & at The Helm with lunch for $9...both seemed like fair NY prices.

As for the beer itself, I thought it was great and would happily have it again.

Also a nice canning date of 3.28

 

Local store on Long Island has King Sue and Fire,Skulls and Money for $21.99, this is a price I can deal with. Would pick this stuff up regularly if it his here fresh. King Sue has best by date on package, canned on date on can, this is pretty disengenious. Difference between canned on and best by is 4 months.

 

It's really disingenuous apparently. Found Psudeo Sue on Long Island for a super reasonable $13.50, a little old by normal standards but well within the "best by" date on the can. It was a mess. Tons of floaties and almost no flavor.



That being said, also picked up really fresh King Sue at the same store and had the opposite experience. Kind of insane a beer that good is being sold in stores and in such good quantities.

 

FWIW Fire,Skulls and Money has fallen off the cliff compared to can I had last week. Malty, hop burn gone, crazy this has a 4 month best by date, totally different beer now.

 

The best by date on these beers are an absolute joke.

 

Forgot to mention canned date of 3/18

 

I ask respectfully, but how can a beer fall off a cliff and be a "totally different beer" within a week? Maybe this is so... but at what point do you chalk it up to your own shifting day-to-day perspective instead?

 

Could be but it was so different. No hop burn, maltier.

 

For some reason I cannot find the information - do we know the time period TG uses for the "Best By" date they put on the King Sue packaging? I hate the use of that term vs. the canning date so curious when an 8/23 Best Buy translates into from a canning date. Assuming 90 days?

 

4 months.

 

Ended up taking a leap and got a 4-pack. Bit different than fresher KS I have had but still a great beer.

 

How in the world does a brewery like Toppling Goliath stand by a 4 month best by date???

 

Most beer is perfectly fine after 4 months. We’ve just been brainwashed to thinking everything needs to be fresh off the canning line for a beer to be good. Most beers dont fall off a cliff after 2 weeks. Especially from breweries that have been producing the same beer day after day and year after year.

Fresh heady and 5 month old heady are hard to differentiate. Just an example.

 

At 7% ABV doesn't it make sense to compare pseudo sue to beers like hop showers, wrench, and whatever else is hoppy at about the same heft rather than split hair over ipa/pale ale/iipa?

I feel like if you can guarantee some amount of refrigeration then 4 months makes sense as all of us love to chime in with ancient OH cans that are still holding up. Plenty of shops in the area don't refrigerate their beer well, though I understand some move too quickly to need it.

Do we know how far out Stone dated their Enjoy By's?

 

I generally agree with you but this is definitely not the case for TG. See my above post for less than 3 month old Pseudo Sue.

I've had Other Half beers that were 6 months old and still taste great. Obviously those went straight from the brewery fridge to my fridge, so it's not a super apt comparison, but my issue is TG quite blatantly stating on the bottom of the can that the beer is well within a freshness date when it's clearly not. It's not like this is the first time they're distributing cans.

 

I was just in Minneapolis and was disappointed to see those best-by dates. That's a weasel move. While I was there I had the Scorpius IIPA and man I hated that beer. Just something really off about the flavor profile. The King Sue I had was outstanding though, so that's good.

 

I think 4 months is pushing the limits on hazy NE style IPA's. Yeah it may taste good still, but if had side by side with a 2-3 week old example of the same beer, many would be noticeably different IMO... as to your heady example just on visual appearance alone it would be night and day difference... 5 month old would be a major snow globe, but yes - drink from the can... lol.

Personally, I'd say 2-3 months should be the appropriate window. For me it sometimes takes me several weeks to work through a 4 pack of DIPA's, so if you are starting at week 15-16 of that beers life off the shelf, you could have a 5-6 month old beer by time you get to last can...

 

2 weeks and 4 months are two extremes. I'm not one of those have to drink beer by 2 weeks type of people, but I also think NEIPAs can change drastically once several months have passed. I also think it depends on the beer in terms of how well they age. Last time I was at TH, I bought a half case each of Green and Doppelganger. Green tasted fine after 2-3 months, but Doppel got noticeably worse after 6 weeks.

I think 4 months as some kind of guarantee across all of TG's beers is a bit of a stretch is all.

 

TG or any brewery that puts a best by date is not saying the beer is just as good at that date as it is at 2-3 weeks.. It's just a date they are willing to stand by to sell it. Those complaining about it have to realize there are plenty of people willing to drink 4 month old IPA's and are happy with the taste (including most of us when we first got into craft before we became the freshness snobs we are today and yes I am also a member of the fraternity). Seems to me most of the TG beers I have bought since they've come to NJ have both a canned on and best by date on them so I am not so sure TG is trying to be deceptive with their packaging.

 

Yeah but as numerous people have said, the beers have basically completely fallen off within the freshness dates on the cans. My less than 3 month old cans of Pseudo Sue had basically no flavor and were snow globes. To the fair, this was my first experience with PS, so maybe that's just what it tastes like, but I really doubt it based off the hype and how many my cans of King Sue were.

If the beers are falling off completely well within the "best-by" date on the can, how is TG not being deceptive here?