In an interview with Hugh Sisson of Clipper City, Andy Crouch asks Hugh how important is freshness dating?
I think it’s pretty important from thew standpoint that it gives you some
credibility with consumers. The only thing that is tough about it is that
quantifying anything in one simple measurement is typically misleading. For
example, because of the nature of the dark malt in darker beers, there is a good
resistance to oxidation. Dark beers could be dated a hell of a lot longer than
they are. One of the things that people don’t understand is that the most
delicate beer we make is the Loose Cannon because of all the hops that are in
it. The hop compounds will oxidize quite quickly and that’s kind of
counterintuitive. Many people think IPA’s will wear like iron. Guess what,
they’re wrong. At least doing something that gives the consumer some sort of
criteria in determining whether something is fresh is a good idea. Anything we
can do to give a consumer a way of determining whether the product is as it
should be is good.
Just because hops are considered a beer stabilizer and has antiseptic properties, doesn't mean that hop forward beers won't oxidize faster than beers with lesser hop character.
