Mistakes to avoid when you’re buying craft beer
Buying beer used to be simple. The hardest choice you had to make was imported or domestic, or maybe how many cans you wanted. Today, craft beer is everywhere, and the beer run is no longer a walk in the park. Here are some common beer-buying mistakes to avoid on your next shopping trip.
Buying old beer
With precious few exceptions, beer is best when it’s as fresh as possible. This is doubly true when you’re dealing with smaller, local breweries that don’t have the process controls in place that the bigger craft brewers (think Sierra Nevada and Boston Beer Co.) enjoy, or when you’re buying hop-forward brews. Most craft brewers date their packages with either a bottled-on date or a “best before” date; buying beer without looking for some indication of its freshness is a great way to buy stale beer. Generally, you want beer that’s less that 90 days old, and if you’re buying hoppy beer, the fresher the better. Old beer won’t hurt you, but it won’t be as fragrant or vibrant in flavor as you deserve.
Buying unrefrigerated beer
After shelf life, the biggest threat to the flavor of craft beer is temperature. All the chemical reactions that degrade a fresh beer into a flabby and faded pint are accelerated at warmer temperatures. Anything above about 40 degrees Fahrenheit puts beer at risk, and room temperature ages a beer many times faster than cold storage. It’s always preferable to buy beer out of a cooler instead of floor stock, but many stores stock their refrigerated sections out of warm warehouses — so ask where the beer lived before it got to the cooler.
Shopping at the wrong stores
It’s great that craft beer is so ubiquitous at grocery stores, bodegas and even Costco, at least in theory. The reality is that most of these retailers are not as focused on beer quality as they are on moving cases of product. From keeping stock warm to keeping inventory that’s embarrassingly old, even some stores that try to be craft beer destinations are really just selling bad beer. Your best bet is to shop at specialty retailers that have the knowledge and passion for beer.
Not taking care of the beer when you get it home
Don’t ruin a good thing before you get to drink it. Keep your beer off the kitchen counter and in the refrigerator. And don’t let that fresh bottle of double IPA sit around in the fridge waiting for the perfect time to drink it, only to have it slowly fade into flavorlessness. Those cans of hazy IPAs are particularly susceptible to mishandling, so keep those cold and drink them within a couple of weeks.