A friend told me about a deal on beer at a local store the other day.
His news reminded me that sometimes deals on beer aren't deals at all. Occasionally beer is put on sale because it's old and past its prime. And while some strong beers can be aged, about 99.99 percent of beers are meant to be consumed within a couple of months after being brewed.
BeerAdvocate Magazine recently wrote about this topic. They have some tips to detect old beer.
The first is obvious: Check for a best-by or brewed-on date. For brewed-on dates, don't buy beer that's much more than three months old.
If beer doesn't have an easily-readable freshness date (I think all beer should), a clue that it's old is dust on the bottles.
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I had noticed both forms of the timestamp, however, didn't know the shelf life for acceptability. Now I'm curious to examine them more closely when I return home tonight, and also when I buy next time.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'd be interested in reading about buying cold beer, as it seems to return to room temperature even on a short , air-conditioned car ride here in Sarasota in the summer. I've been buying beer off the shelf, as opposed to from the cooler, but I'm not certain of any science behind "skunked" beer.
I've thought to write in complete sentences for this comment, as I assume it could be arduous for you to have to have to read through my typical assault on ellipses, and lack of capitalization altogether.
I'll write about skunked beer soon. The super-short version: Keep beer away from light, especially direct sunlight.
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