Beer maturation - how to rate?

Originally posted by Frank

Originally posted by keanex
So you rate beers that have best buy or bottled on dates that are clearly old?

Well, I normally don’t buy ones that are clearly marked as expired or I can otherwise tell they are old but, yes, I still rate them if I end up with one. It is the brewery’s name that is on the label. If their bottles are sitting on shelves too long, it reflects poorly on them and that is their problem. If they are willing to let the beer get to me in that condition, I am more than happy to rate it in that condition.

I don’t think sticking it to the brewery because a clearly past-its-prime beer pulled from the back of a dusty shelf or pulled from the out-of-season discount bin is necessarily fair. Especially since most don’t have direct control over their product the moment it leaves their warehouse to the distributor.

Want to fix the problem?
1) Tell the store that you bought an old bottle or that the beer was off in some way. You don’t even have to ask or even want a refund, but telling them that some IPA was dusty or a lager was horribly light struck might cause them to get in contact with their distributor. I have a friend who worked at a beer/wine store and for a distributor and they’d often have to pull and/or exchange bad beer - partly to just keep everyone happy. bad beer = angry customers = less sales. If they don’t do anything and the problem continues to persist, you’re better off reviewing the place low, to "warn" potential customers that the place doesn’t keep a good inventory.
2) Contact the brewery (or the brewery rep for that state/region, should they have one) directly and tell them where you got an old bottle. They might be able to work from the other end of things to ensure that fresh beer makes it out.

We should not act like passive aggressive Yelp reviewers who decided to take their gripe online instead of to the management when they were there. A bad review from on Yelp can kill a business, but I think most brewers don’t even look at RB (or other beer sites) so any "helpful" criticism will be totally lost on everyone except other users.



I have definitely passed up on rating a number of beers at tastings that were of the "hey, this bottle has been sitting at home for a while, but I figured we’d see how it developed" - which developed into a complete mess.

Originally posted by blipp
No, because I don’t buy them.

How are they coming into your possession then? If you’re not buying them then you do not know why the bottle is old. It could have been fault of whoever you acquired it from to begin with, not the brewery or store’s fault.

The fact is, I work in a retail store and we recently pulled a LOT of old beer. I can assure you that it’s not even close to being the brewery’s fault in a lot of cases.

Originally posted by keanex

Originally posted by blipp
No, because I don’t buy them.

How are they coming into your possession then? If you’re not buying them then you do not know why the bottle is old. It could have been fault of whoever you acquired it from to begin with, not the brewery or store’s fault.

The fact is, I work in a retail store and we recently pulled a LOT of old beer. I can assure you that it’s not even close to being the brewery’s fault in a lot of cases.

I’m talking about beers that are not labelled and that are clearly out-of-date upon consumption. If there’s no best-by date, then I rate away. It’s as much the brewery’s fault for not alerting the consumer as it is the store’s fault for not pulling the product. Again, any joe-6-pack is just as likely as I am to walk into a store and buy the old product. The reviews on the site should reflect the totality of experiences that an average consumer should expect to encounter with any given beer. If a consumer is likely to buy out-of-date beer, the reviews should reflect that. Let’s say 50% of people end up purchasing an IPA when it’s old. Why should the reviews reflect only the "peak" of the beer, when clearly that’s not what most people are getting when the purchase it?

If bottles are dated, I won’t rate something that is out-of-date, because the brewer has done all they reasonably could have done to prevent old product from being purchased.

In conclusion: It’s a reasonable request to have a "best-by" date on bottles. If a best-by date is not clearly indicated, and you end up with old product, then rate away.