The Dating Game: Stop Fretting About Extremely Fresh Beer and Just Drink It
Also: Edible Excursions visits brew and bite sites in Oakland's Temescal.
By Nick Miller @nickmiller510
So Fresh, So What? I feel compelled to address a maddening trend in the beer universe: Brew-guzzlers’ obsession with extreme freshness when it comes to hoppy beer.
A bit o’ back story: Hopped brews, which include the ubiquitous and all-powerful IPA, aren’t supposed to be aged. These styles should be refrigerated 24-seven and, in my experience, preferably consumed within 90 days of brewing. Hops deteriorate and evolve, and hopped-up pale ales, IPAs, and variants don’t respond well to intense, prolonged sunlight or heat.
But the more enthusiastic brew drinkers in the East Bay and beyond have gone too far. I regularly hear from acquaintances in the distribution world of retailers returning IPA kegs that are more than two weeks “old.” And there seems to be a prevailing attitude among certain snobbier cabals that, if a hoppy beer has sat for just a month, it is no longer tasty and warrants a drain pour.
You folks on this fresh train know who you are — and you need to dial it back a few notches. For instance, those hazy, hoppy ales that rule tap handles these days actually taste better with a week or two under their belts. And, if properly stored and served, there’s little discernible change between a two-week old IPA and one that’s been around for six or eight.
Brewers also now regularly put “brewed on” or “drink by” dating stamps on hoppy beers, a useful bit of info that, sadly, has had the unintended consequence of fueling the desire for the freshest beer. I’m not saying brewers end the dating game, however; this is on consumers.
The good news is that East Bay breweries are going through hoppy beer so fast, age ain’t nothing but a number … of days. For instance, a brewer at Fieldwork Brewing Co. told me once that they’ll burn through a 100-barrel batch of hoppy beer in less than three days.
Today’s lesson: Fresh is good but not some holy grail, and snobbery is always a bad look, so drink your hoppy beer and friggin’ like it.
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