Enjoy By

I'm not sure I fully understand brewers need to put an 'Enjoy By' date on their beers instead of a best before date... What the hell (as a retailer) are we supposed to do with these beers if they pass this date? Treat them as out of date? Because they certainly seem to be without a BBD if they have an Enjoy By..

It seems to be a phrase creeping into a lot of pale ales and IPAs at the moment and its seeming to annoy me a little. Why not just use the phrase 'Drink Fresh' and stick to a best before date?

Maybe I'm making mountains out of mole hills, but as a retailer if you send me a pallet of beer with only three months to sell it, you're either totally convinced in your product to stand out against all competition - to sell out just like that, or oblivious to said competition at all!

Is an extra couple of months really going to make that much of a difference to the taste of your beer? If so maybe you need to think about making a beer that isn't so focused on just the hops. There's another three ingredients in beer too! We all know that hop deterioration does exist, but I've never been shown any sort of time scale for this phenomenon much less pair two of the same beers made one month apart...  I'd really be interested to know if someone had tried a beer that was five months old in the bottle compared to a beer that was one month in the bottle. Honestly tell me you'll be able to tell the difference, cos I bet you wouldn't be able to - unless your mind totally convinced you otherwise!

Forget the Enjoy By, forget even the Drink Fresh! Just stick to a best before date (which let's face it, unless you're making a wheat beer doesn't matter at all)

And how about you all stop making beer which you know will lose half it's flavour a couple of months after it's been produced... It's not a realistic time scale to sell your product!