The Bar Towel

14 bottles of Storm King Stout left on the shelves of the Georgetown LCBO ...

I picked up both the Burton and the Samuel Smith from Queen's Quay store this morning...no sign of anything else from the release.

Burton & Sam Smith have appeared at the Brock Street store as well.

On 2004-01-17 13:25, SirIsm wrote:
I picked up both the Burton and the Samuel Smith from Queen's Quay store this morning...no sign of anything else from the release.

Also Hebrew Genesis. Not sure if that's a limited release or a recent full time addition.

On 2004-01-17 14:25, JerCraigs wrote:
Also Hebrew Genesis. Not sure if that's a limited release or a recent full time addition.

It's full time, I think. And it's a fairly decent American Pale Ale - not quite so hoppy as Sierra Nevada and the like, but still quite good.

The Manulife Centre location (at Bay & Bloor) now has Storm King, Samuel Smith's, Burton, and O'Hara's.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: bluewater on 2004-01-17 18:54 ]</font>

Summerhill has Storm King, Samuel Smith's, Burton Porter, and some other beers leftover from previous releases. There will probably be a wait for Young's Double Chocolate and St. Peter's, though, as they aren't even listed on the LCBO website yet.

For anyone who has bought Victory beers in Buffalo or elsewhere, have you noticed that the "Bottled on" date that is usually stamped on the label has been replaced with a "Best Before" date? Personally, I think that the former is much more useful for beers with some cellar potential, like Storm King, and I wonder why Victory made the change for the LCBO.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Wheatsheaf on 2004-01-17 19:04 ]</font>

This is a question no one would ask in Europe. I don't know if you noticed but all the belgian and other european beers have an expiry date and for a good reason I assume. I would ask a different question: Is it safe to keep beer past the expiry date for aging or any other purposes?

I thought it was odd to see Storm King dated only for one year out. Surely they're joking - an imperial stout only good for a year?

I understand your point, Manul. I was just curious about the reason for the change that Victory made for the Ontario market. I have nothing against expiry dates, and only meant that a bottling date is a useful piece of information. Ideally, like Orval does in Europe, a brewery provides both a bottling date and an expiry/best before date (a five-year interval in Orval's case). If you happen to know when breweries set their expiry dates for (6 or 12 or 18 months after bottling, etc.), then that's fine, too.

As for whether it's safe to age beers past their expiry dates I can only suggest that you ask the owners of the Kulminator in Antwerp.

For a strong, bottle conditioned beer like Storm King, common sense suggests that a one year expiry date is probably too short.

When I was last in Belgium I was drinking 22 year old Chimay Blue so that pretty much tells you how long you can keep a strong, bottle-conditioned beer...it'll outlast you!

On 2004-01-17 19:30, Manul wrote:
This is a question no one would ask in Europe. I don't know if you noticed but all the belgian and other european beers have an expiry date and for a good reason I assume. I would ask a different question: Is it safe to keep beer past the expiry date for aging or any other purposes?

This whole exp. date issue (and others) are comming from an over regimented EU health commitee. It is really pissing the brewers off, especially in Belgium since they must conform to standards which would undermine the quality of their beers. For examples, for the time being, Lambic brewers can keep brewing as they have been for centuries, but their fermenting techniques are under fire and their is genuinely justified fears that these small traditional brewers will be phased out of existance for their innability to conform to the restricting standards. Lambics are brewed by exposing the wort (unfermented beer) to the ambiant air so that it is fed the wild yeast that produce the desired flavours. In most beers, most of the organisms that inhabit fermenting lambics would be considered infections and therefore, the beer would not pass the strict EU sanctionned standards that have imposed the BB date that you mentionned.

There are countless examples like this, beyond the lembek region of belgium. I had a chance to have a long talk with the brewmaster at the Abey de St-Rémi where the Rochefort beers are brewed. His opinion was that many smaller breweries, (including Westvleteren and Rochefort) are severely threatened by these new standards because in order to do all the necessary testings to pass the standards, more personnel are required, more equipment, more time etc, and it is a real economic strain to fulfill these obligations; this means that they must increase brewing capacity in order to pay for this and thus quality is threatened. Most small breweries are already almost incapable of turning in a profit.

There is a tradition of brewing great beer in Belgium; they brew different kinds of beer than the usual standard fare and the EU standards are designed for the macro type beers that have 4-5% ABV, no yeast and short shelf lives. One of the greatest things I saw while in Belgium this summer was that the Oud Beersel brewery put 20 year expiry dates on their products (ie. 2022). Sadly this brewer no longer brews, partly due to the stringent EU standards.

Just because there is a law or standard somewhere, doesn't mean that it is benificial.

Daniel

Well said.

I guess it depends from what point of view you look at things. They might be a little drastic in their quality/health requirements but we on the other hand are on the other side of the river. We don't have many rules in this direction. Not once I opened a north american beer that was bad and there was no way I could tell when it was brewed, let alone what the expiry date was. Me for one I am happy to rather see a BB date on a bottle of beer than nothing at all. And Daniel, how do you explain that I have ageable belgian beers in my cellar with BB dates varying from 2004 to 2010 (all bought within an interval of an year)? Or how do you explain the fact that an european pils usually has a BB date of roughly an year after the production date while the beers on lees 3 to 10 years? Since I'm sure you wouldn't want to drink a pils that was brewed more than a year before you opened the bottle then why would their health standards be too high for the beers on lees. I'm hoping you can give us more info regarding the matter.

We don't have many rules in this direction. Not once I opened a north american beer that was bad and there was no way I could tell when it was brewed, let alone what the expiry date was. Me for one I am happy to rather see a BB date on a bottle of beer than nothing at all.

And Daniel, how do you explain that I have ageable belgian beers in my cellar with BB dates varying from 2004 to 2010 (all bought within an interval of an year)? Or how do you explain the fact that an european pils usually has a BB date of roughly an year after the production date while the beers on lees 3 to 10 years?

Since I'm sure you wouldn't want to drink a pils that was brewed more than a year before you opened the bottle then why would their health standards be too high for the beers on lees. I'm hoping you can give us more info regarding the matter.

As for the rules in Ontario, I think some professional brewers on this site might be more apt to explain them. I however would not be too keen on seeing too many implemented. If anything we have way too many rules governing alcoholic beverage, especially beer, in this province. Common sense would dictate that if a brewer is selling beer that will be sold out as a poor representation of his product: out of date; poorly handled and stored, etc, that he would have some serious apprehensions about that himself.

Although many european beers are sold in Ontario, by and large, they are usually in poor health and are rather poor representations of their locally available quality. They have BB dates on them, but once that beer is put in containers and shipped accross the Atlantic and then shelved in bright florescent light, that beer is damaged goods. I have personally never had a good czek pilsener in this province for example. You are much better off taking chances with a quality local micro with no BB dates.

As for not drinking pilseners a year after it is brewed.... Pilsners are usually bottled without yeast (there are some exceptions - Christofel for example - which I would drink 3 years after it was brewed). These beautiful, clear resillient beers are dead the minute they are bottled. To add to this, most of the large capacity brewed beers, in NA, and Europe, are brewed with large quantities of starchy adjuncts which increases their rate of deterioration. A bottled beer without yeast is like a packaged food, it has a shelf life and will deteriorate. A bottled beer with yeast is still very much alive and will most often improve with age as the yeast continue to slowly convert the less fermentable sugars remaining in the beer. If a yeastless beer is kept refrigerated, it can be kept for years as well, though I would not trust the LCBO, or the BS to make sure that happens.

I guess a good summation here is that you cannot impose universal rules like exp. date on all beers because there are so many beer styles and different packaging methods with such an array of shelf lives that it becomes almost impossible. Would you ever consider putting a best before date on a Chateau Latour... Nor should you a Wesvleteren 12, Rochefort 10 or even less a Cantillon Gueuze! If the lack of expirey date on a bottle of wine doesn't phase you, then you shouldn't care that a beer doesn't have one either. If a particular style of beer is only good fresh, then you will see the brewers adjust their brewing schedules to make sure that their beers are always fresh when you buy them - at least locally. The two most memorable beer experiences that I have had were with an 8 and a 15 year old beers. Mostly, though, the expiry date is a gimmick put forth by the macro brewers (at least in the US) to try and impose an almost impossible standard for the microbrewery industry. Most of all, if standards are going to be set, they should be set by someone who understands all of the facets and faces of beer.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dhurtubise on 2004-01-18 22:45 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dhurtubise on 2004-01-18 22:47 ]</font>