UK bottle dates

Heh - touché It's probably true that UK beers in the US (and vice-versa) are often past their best due to hanging around for too long.

I agree with what Reprob8 posted above - it comes down to the 'typical' experience of beer drinkers where they live. In my experience many bottled beers over here can last for quite a long time without undergoing significant negative changes (assuming storage away from excessive light/heat); this probably boils down to lower usage of aroma hops in general. I guess this means freshness is more of an issue in the US than here, although this is changing as more UK breweries put out hoppier brews. Beer style and conditioning will also factor in to a beer's shelf life.

The ideal scenario (again, above) would be for beers to come with a bottled-on date so that the consumer could decide whether they want to take a chance or not.....

 

I had a brain storm the other day and thought to check all online beer shops in UK I could find on the net and low and behold I happened across two bottles of Goose Island BCBVS from Ales by Mail. It appears we can come across some American "whales" once in a while. And if you're looking for Mikkeller, you need to check Beers of Europe (online or Kings Lynn), they have loads of Mikkeller! The place is a gold mine!

 

BCBVS was in Beers of Europe as well, there seemed to be quite a lot of it around. At least what there was was spread out quite nicely around quite a few shops in the UK.

 

Missed that one! They don't even have it on their website. Normally, beers will be listed but will be marked "out of stock".

 

Not the one offs. Realistically it's "out of stock" if it's likely they'll be getting more in.

 

IIRC Founders have practically stopped exporting to the UK. Magic Rock have only just started bottling again; they have their own plant now, the stuff ages ago was contracted. Usual UK stock for those US brewers is down to the same distributor / importer and what's on their list.

Beermerchants sell a range of Mikkeller and Kernel.

BBE dates on bottled beer are fairly meaningless in the vast majority of cases. Like the BBE 2037 date I'm looking at now on a bottle of Bateman's Vintage.

 

My personal take is that the typical British beer styles below 5% abv are past their prime after 4 months. The retailers more or less require the brewers to provide them with beer having at least a one year BB date.

IMO the retailers in Britain do not care at all about the end consumer. If they can provide fresh produce and/or dairy products a 4 month BB date should seem easy. Not so according to them of course.